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THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON 


BOOKS  BY  HENRY  VAN  DYKE 

Published  by  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


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THE 

POETRY  OF  TENNYSON 


TENTH  EDITION,  REVISED  AND  ENLARGED 
WITH   A  NEW   PREFACE 


BY 
HENRY   VAN   DYKE 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1915 


Copyright,  1889, 1891,  1892,  1897,  1898, 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


Published,  October,  1889.  Revised  and  enlarged,  September, 
1891,  November,  1892.  Reprinted,  October,  1893,  August,  1894, 
December,  1895,  August,  1896.  Revised  and  enlarged,  October,  1898. 
Reprinted,  July,  1899,  July,  1901,  Apiil,  1902. 

Cam  bo  Edition,  reset  and  revised,  September,  1897,  August 
1898,  October,  1900. 


To 

A  YOUNG  WOMAN 
OF  AN  OLD   FASHION 

WHO   LOVES  ART 

NOT   FOR    ITS  OWN   SAKE 

BUT   BECAUSE   IT  ENNOBLES   LIFE 

WHO    READS    POETRY 

NOT  TO  KILL  TIME 

BUT  TO   FILL   IT  WITH    BEAUTIFUL  THOUGHTS 

AND  WHO  STILL   BELIEVES 

IN  GOD   AND   DUTY   AND  IMMORTAL   LOVE 

I   DEDICATE 

THIS   BOOK 


38057 


PREFACE 
TO   THE  TENTH  EDITION. 


This  book  is  a  study  of  the  growth  of  a 
poet's  mind  and  of  the  perfecting  of  his  art. 
Such  a  subject  cannot  be  treated  without 
reference  to  personality  and  environment. 
The  man,  if  he  be  true,  stands  revealed  in 
his  work ;  and  the  work,  if  it  be  vital,  re- 
flects the  age  in  which  it  is  produced,  and 
the  literature  of  other  lands  and  times  to 
which  it  is  related. 

These  pages,  therefore,  if  they  are  to  have 
any  value,  must  contain  something  about 
Tennyson's  life  and  character ;  something 
about  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  tenden- 
cies of  the  Victorian  Age ;  and  something 
about  poetry  in  its  broader  aspects  as  the 
inspirer  and  consoler  of  humanity  in  all 
ages.  But  I  have  tried  not  to  follow  these 
lines  so  far  afield  as  to  lose  sight  of  my 


Vlll       PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION. 

definite  purpose,  which  was  to  give  as  clear 
and  fair  a  view  as  possible  of  the  poetry  of 
Tennyson  in  its  real  significance,  its  dis- 
tinctive quality,  and  its  permanent  worth. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  noth- 
ing so  large  as  this  was  contemplated  or 
proposed  when  the  book  was  begun.  In 
fact,  it  was  not  planned  at  all,  nor  built 
after  a  regular  design.  It  grew  out  of  a 
personal  experience.  And  perhaps  this  may 
be  as  good  a  time  and  place  as  any,  now 
that  the  tenth  edition  is  going  to  the  press, 
to  tell  how  the  book  came  to  be  written,  and 
thus  to  explain  its  form  and  its  limitations. 

It  began  with  a  birthday  gift  of  a  dollar 
which  a  little  boy  received  on  his  fourteenth 
birthday,  from  a  very  pleasant  old  lady.  His 
fortune  led  him  into  a  bookstore  to  spend 
this  money,  which  burned  in  his  pocket;  and 
his  guardian  angel,  I  must  suppose,  directed 
his  unconscious  choice  to  a  book  called 
Enoch  Arden.  It  was  a  pirated  edition,  and 
therefore  cheap,  for  this  happened  in  the 
days  when  the  American  publishers  still 
practised  literary  brigandage,  and  the 
American  people  were  still  willing  to  be. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION.  IT 

lieve  that  it  was  more  desirable  to  get 
books  at  a  low  price  than  to  get  them  in 
a  fair  way.  But  the  boy  was  not  far  enough 
out  of  the  age  of  barbarism  to  feel  any 
moral  scruple  on  a  point  like  this,  and  the 
guardian  angel  said  nothing  about  it, — 
probably  intending  to  overrule  the  evil  for 
good.  So  the  book  was  bought,  and  it  be- 
came the  key  which  let  that  happy  boy  into 
the  garden  and  palace  of  poetry,  there  to 
find  a  new  beauty  in  the  world,  a  new 
meaning  in  life,  and  a  new  joy  in  living. 

Not  that  this  was  his  first  book  of  poems. 
He  had  lived  in  a  library,  and  was  already 
the  proprietor  of  a  small  bookcase  of  his 
own.  But  hitherto  poetry  had  seemed  to 
him  like  something  foreign  and  remote, 
much  less  interesting  than  fiction,  and  even 
than  some  kinds  of  history.  He  had  read 
plenty  of  poems,  of  course,  and  had  tried 
his  hand  at  making  verses.  But  the  formal 
and  artificial  side  of  poetry  was  still  the 
most  prominent  to  his  mind.  It  was  some- 
thing to  be  translated  and  scanned  and 
parsed.  It  belonged  to  the  tedious,  profit- 
able world  of  education  and  examination. 


X  PREFACE  TO  TEE  TENTH  EDITION. 

But  Enoch,  Arden  evidently  belonged  to 
life.  It  was  a  story  about  real  people.  And 
then,  it  was  so  beautifully  told.  There  was 
such  a  glow  in  it,  such  splendid  colour,  sucb 
a  swing  and  sweep  of  musical  words,  such  a 
fine  picture  of  a  brave  man,  and  at  the  end 
such  a  sad  touch  to  bring  the  tears  into  your 
eyes,  —  all  hy  yourself,  you  understand, 
when  no  one  could  see  you  and  laugh  at 
you.  Why,  this  was  as  good  as  any  novel, 
—  yes,  somehow  it  was  better,  for  there 
was  a  charm  in  the  very  movement  of  the 
verse,  the  rise  and  fall,  the  ebb  and  flow, 
the  stately,  measured  cadence,  that  seemed 
to  stir  the  feelings  and  make  them  deeper 
and  fuller. 

So  the  boy  became  a  lover  of  poetry, 
perceiving  that  it  was  a  living  thing ;  and 
he  began  to  look  around  him  for  other 
poems  which  should  give  him  the  same 
kind  of  pleasure  through  the  quickening  of 
his  feelings,  and  the  brightening  of  his 
thoughts,  and  the  interpreting  of  life  and 
nature  in  music.  Of  course,  he  found  many 
of  them,  ancient  and  modern.  His  capacity 
of  enjoyment  increased,  as  his  taste  broad- 


PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION.  x\ 

ened.  He  passed  along  the  lines  of  new 
sympathies  from  one  poet  to  another,  dis- 
covered the  touch  of  life  in  books  which  he 
had  thought  were  dry  and  dead,  and  learned 
to  appreciate  beauties  of  which  he  had  not 
suspected  the  existence.  Even  the  poets  of 
Greece  and  Rome  began  to  say  something 
to  his  heart  which  it  was  neither  necessary 
nor  possible  to  translate.  They  were  no 
longer  shadows  of  mighty  names,  but  real 
makers  of  real  things  in  the  enduring  world 
of  poesy. 

The  boy  came  to  understand,  as  he  grew 
into  man's  estate,  that  there  were  other, 
and  a  few  yet  loftier,  masters  in  the  realm 
of  song ;  but  Tennyson  still  held  the  first 
place  in  his  affections.  There  was  a  singular 
charm  in  the  manner  and  accent  of  this 
poet,  so  melodious,  so  fluent,  so  clear,  and 
yet  so  noble  and  powerful.  Tennyson 
seemed  to  be  the  one,  among  all  the  Eng- 
lish poets,  who  was  in  closest  sympathy 
with  the  sentiments,  the  aspirations,  the 
conflicts,  and  the  hopes  of  the  modern 
world.  He  not  only  led  the  boy  for  the  first 
time  into  the   regions  of    poetry;    he  also 


Xli  PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION. 

kept  company,  through  all  the  experiences 
of  life,  with  the  young  man. 

When  love  began  to  speak  in  his  heart, 
it  found  an  echo  in  Maud,  and  Locksley 
Hall,  and  The  Princess.     When  doubt  be- 
gan to  trouble  his  mind,  he  turned  to  Two 
Voices  and  In  Memoriam,  to  learn  that  it 
was  no  new  thing  for  faith  to  have  to  fight 
for  her  life.     When  the  larger  problems  of 
human  duty  and  destiny  began  to   press 
upon  him,  he  saw  them  nobly  pictured  in 
the  Idylls  of  the  King  and  The  Palace  of 
Art ;  and  he  read  a  splendid  answer  to  them 
in  such  poems  as  Will,  and  Wages,  and  the 
Ode  on  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
When  he  began  to  take  that  deeper,  broader 
interest   in   human   character   which  only 
comes  with  maturity,  he  found  in  Ulysses 
and  Lucretius  and  St.  Simeon  Stylites  and 
The  Northern  Farmer  and  Rizpah,  convinc- 
ing portraits  of  living  souls.     And  when  at 
last,  after  many  happy  years,  sorrow  entered 
his  house  and  filled  his  heart,  he  turned 
again  to  In  Memoriam,  and  it  brought  him 
more  comfort  than  any  book  in  the  world 
save  One. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION.        Xlii 

It  was  not  unnatural,  then,  that  this  man 
should  be  a  Tennysonian,  not  as  a  matter  of 
theory,  but  as  an  affair  of  experience.  And 
the  time  came  when  he  felt  the  wish  to 
make  some  acknowledgment  of  the  debt 
which  he  owed  to  this  poet,  to  set  in  order 
some  more  careful  estimate  of  the  influences 
which  have  flowed  from  his  poetry  into  the 
life  of  the  present  age,  and  to  give  some 
reasons  for  thinking  that  Tennyson  stands 
among  the  great  poets,  if  not  on  a  level 
with  the  greatest. 

So  an  essay  was  written  comparing  and 
contrasting  Tennyson  and  Milton,  and  enter- 
ing, for  the  first  time,  a  claim  for  Tennyson 
as  third  in  rank  among  the  English  poets. 
This  essay  was  printed  in  1883.  It  was 
followed  by  another  which  contained  a 
critical  study  of  the  successive  changes  in 
The  Palace  of  Art,  as  indicating  the  growth 
of  Tennyson's  genius  and  the  spirit  of  his 
poetry.  Then,  after  intervals  of  a  year  or 
two,  essays  on  The  Idylls  of  the  King,  The 
Bible  in  Tennyson,  and  Locksley  Hall  Sixty 
Year 8  After,  were  written.  At  last  it 
seemed  as  if  a  book  could  be  made  out  of 


XIV  PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION. 

these  chapters,  with  the  addition  of  others, 
to  complete  the  outline,  which  might  give 
some  pleasure  to  a  few  readers  among  the 
lovers  of  Tennyson,  and  perhaps  make  a  few 
converts  among  those  who  had  not  yet  ap- 
preciated the  significance  of  his  poetry.  A 
chronology  of  the  poet's  life  and  a  bibli- 
ography of  the  Tennyson  literature  were 
prepared,  imperfectly  enough,  to  be  sure, 
but  yet  with  far  more  fulness  and  accuracy 
than  had  hitherto  been  attempted ;  and 
with  these  additions  the  volume  was  printed 
and  published  in  1889. 

This  was  the  way  in  which  I  came  to  be 
the  author  of  this  book  ;  and  the  story  may 
serve  at  once  to  make  its  spirit  and  purpose 
clear  to  the  reader,  and  to  explain,  if  not  to 
excuse,  the  imperfections  and  defects  of  its 
method. 

The  call  for  successive  editions  was  equally 
surprising  and  agreeable.  It  afforded  the 
opportunity  of  correcting  some  errors,  revis- 
ing some  hasty  judgments,  and  incorporat- 
ing some  new  material.  It  also  offered  the 
temptation,  too  strong  to  be  resisted,  to  add 
several  prefaces  and  notes  which  did  not 


PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION.  XV 

enhance  the  typographical  beauty  of  the 
volume.  In  1897  these  incumbrances  were 
removed  and  the  book  was  brought  out  in 
a  smaller  form,  in  the  Cameo  Series,  with- 
out the  chronology,  the  bibliography,  or 
the  list  of  Biblical  references,  but  with  a 
new  chapter  on  In  Memoriam. 

But  there  is  still  a  demand  for  the  book 
in  its  original  form  by  those  who  wish  to 
have  the  fuller  materials  for  study.  I  have 
therefore  made  this  final  revision  and  en- 
largement. 

The  various  prefaces  to  the  former  edi- 
tions give  place  to  this  preface.  The  chap- 
ter on  In  Memoriam  from  the  Cameo  edition 
is  inserted,  and  some  of  the  other  chapters 
are  slightly  altered.  The  chronological  and 
bibliographical  appendix  is  fully  revised 
and  completed,  so  that  it  may  serve  as  a 
guide  to  those  who  wish  to  study  the  life 
and  works  and  critical  estimates  of  Tenny- 
son, more  in  detail.  The  list  of  Biblical 
references  is  re-arranged  and  much  enlarged. 

With  these  changes  I  close  my  work 
upon  the  book,  and  send  it  out  for  the  last 
time  to  take  its  chances  in  the  world.    If  it 


xvi       PREFACE  TO  THE  TENTH  EDITION. 

shall  still  find  readers  who  like  it,  or  dislike 
it,  enough  to  turn  from  its  pages  to  the 
poems  of  Tennyson,  it  will  do  well.  For  I 
am  quite  sure,  however  poorly  I  may  have 
succeeded  in  proving  it,  that  poetry  is  the 
noblest  form  of  literature  and  a  vital  ele- 
ment in  human  existence.  The  critic  who 
leads  or  drives  men  to  read  a  great  poet  has 
served  his  purpose  in  the  order  of  the 
universe. 

Henry  van  Dyke. 

New  York, 

October  1st,  1898. 


CONTENTS. 


Paoi 

Preface v» 

The  First  Flight 3 

-The  Palace  of  Art 21 

Milton  and  Tennyson 49 

-The  Princess  and  Maud Ill 

-In  Memoriam 131 

-The  Idylls  of  the  King         155 

The  Historic  Trilogy 221 

The  Bible  in  Tennyson 245 

Fruit  from  an  Old  Tree 279 

On  the  Study  of  Tennyson 305 

A  Valediction 347 

Appendix 

Chronology  and  Bibliography      ....  353 

A  List  of  Biblical  References    ....  391 


THE  FIRST   FLIGHT. 


THE   POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT. 

The  first  appearance  of  a  true  poet  usu- 
ally bears  at  least  one  mark  of  celestial 
origin  —  he  "  cometh  not  with  observa- 
tion." A  small  volume  is  printed  on  some 
obscure  press.  The  friends  to  whom  it  is 
sent,  "  with  the  compliments  of  the  author," 
return  thanks  for  it  in  words  which  com- 
promise truth  with  affection.  The  local 
newspaper  applauds  it  in  a  perfunctory 
way  ;  some  ogre  of  a  critic,  whose  appetite 
for  young  poets  is  insatiable,  may  happen 
to  make  a  hasty  and  savage  meal  of  it ;  or 
some  kindly  reviewer,  who  is  always  look- 
ing on  the  hopeful  side  of  literature,  may 
discover  in  it  the  buds  of  promise.  But 
this  is  mainly  a  matter  of  chance ;  the  cer- 
tainty is  that  there  will  be  few  to  buy  the 
book  with  hard  cash,  and  fewer  still  to 
read  it,  except  from  curiosity  or  friendship, 
and  that  the   great  world  will  roll  on  its 


4  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

way  as  serenely  as  if  nothing  of  consequence 
had  occurred. 

Somewhat  after  this  fashion  most  of  the 
leading  English  poets  have  arrived.  There 
was  no  great  stir  made  by  the  publication 
of  Descriptive  Sketches,  or  Hours  of  Idle- 
ness. The  announcement  of  Original 
Poems  by  Victor  and  Cazire  did  not  pro- 
duce any  excitement.  Even  Venus  and 
Adonis  failed  to  inform  the  public  that 
the  creator  of  Hamlet  and  Othello  had 
appeared.  The  recognition  of  genius  in  a 
first  flight  rarely  takes  place  at  the  proper 
time ;  it  is  reserved  for  those  prophets  who 
make  their  predictions  after  the  event. 

But  surely  there  never  was  a  poet  of 
rank  who  slipped  into  print  more  quietly 
than  the  junior  author  of  Poems  by  Two 
Brothers.  The  book  was  published  in 
1827  for  J.  &  J.  Jackson,  of  Louth,  and  W. 
Simpkin  &  B.  Marshall,  of  London.  The 
title-page  bore  a  modest  motto  from  Mar- 
tial :  "  Ha>c  nos  novimus  esse  nihil."  The 
preface  repeated  the  same  sentiment  in 
more  diffuse  language. 

"  The  following  Poems  were  written  from 
the  ages  of  fifteen  to  eighteen,  not  con- 
jointly, but   individually,  which    may  ac- 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT.  5 

count  for  their  differences  of  style  and 
matter.  To  light  upon  any  novel  combi- 
nation of  images,  or  to  open  any  vein  of 
sparkling  thought,  untouched  before,  were 
no  easy  task;  indeed,  the  remark  itself  is 
as  old  as  the  truth  is  clear ;  and  no  doubt, 
if  submitted  to  the  microscopic  eye  of 
periodical  criticism,  a  long  list  of  inaccu- 
racies and  imitations  would  result  from 
the  investigation.  But  so  it  is;  we  have 
passed  the  Rubicon,  and  we  leave  the 
rest  to  fate,  though  its  edict  may  create  a 
fruitless  regret  that  we  ever  emerged  from 
'  the  shade '  and  courted  notoriety." 

That  was  surely  a  most  gentle  way  of 
passing  the  Rubicon.  The  only  suggestion 
of  a  flourish  of  trumpets  was  the  capital 
P  in  "  Poems."  Fate,  who  sat  smiling  on 
the  bank,  must  have  been  propitiated  by  a 
bow  so  modest  and  so  awkward.  Not  even 
the  names  of  the  young  aspirants  for  pub- 
lic favor  were  given,  and  only  the  friends 
of  the  family  could  have  known  that  the 
two  brothers  who  thus  stepped  out,  hand 
in  hand,  from  '« the  shade "  were  Charles 
and  Alfred  Tennyson, 

It  is  difficult  to  conjecture  —  unless,  in- 
deed, we  are  prepared  to  adopt  some  wild 


6  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

theory  of  the  disinterested  benevolence  of 
publishers  —  what  induced  the  Jacksons  to 
pay  twenty  pounds  for  the  privilege  of 
printing  this  book.  But  if  they  were  alive 
to-day,  and  had  kept  a  sufficient  number 
of  the  first  edition  on  their  shelves,  their 
virtue  would  have  its  reward ;  for  I  must 
confess  to  having  paid  half  as  much  for  a 
single  copy  as  they  gave  for  the  copyright, 
and,  as  prices  go,  it  was  an  excellent 
bargain. 

Here  it  is  —  a  rather  stout  little  volume 
of  two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  pages, 
paper  not  of  the  finest,  print  not  without 
errors.  It  contains  one  hundred  and  two 
pieces  of  verse,  in  all  kinds  of  metres,  and 
imitated  after  an  amazing  variety  of  models. 
There  is  nothing  very  bad  and  nothing 
very  inspiring.  The  Literary  Chronicle 
and  Weekly  Review  came  as  near  to  the 
truth  as  one  can  expect  of  a  newspaper 
when  it  said:  "This  volume  exhibits  a 
pleasing  union  of  kindred  tastes,  and  con- 
tains several  little  pieces  of  considerable 
merit."  That  is  the  only  contemporary 
criticism  which  has  been  exhumed.  And 
it  would  be  absurd,  at  this  late  day,  to 
urn  the  "microscopic  eye,"  of  which  the 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT.  7 

brothers  were  so  needlessly  afraid,  upon 
their  immature  production. 

And  yet,  to  one  who  can  find  a  pleasure 
in  tracing  the  river  to  its  narrow  source 
among  the  hills,  this  book  is  precious 
and  well  worth  reading.  For  somewhere 
between  these  covers,  hardly  to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  spring  of  that  twin 
rivulet  of  verse  which  ran  so  brief  a  course 
in  the  Sonnets  and  Small  Tableaux  of 
Charles  Tennyson,  lies  the  fountain-head 
of  that  deeper,  clearer  stream  which  has 
flowed  forth  into  In  Memoriam  and  the 
Idylh  of  the  King,  and  refreshed  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world  for  more  than  sixty 
years  with  the  poetry  of  Alfred  Tennyson. 
Here,  then,  we  may  pause  for  a  moment 
and  glance  at  some  of  the  impulses  which 
led  him  to  /•-r'tnmence  poet,  and  the  influ- 
ences which  directed  his  earliest  efforts. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  most  interesting 
and  significant  thing  about  this  little  book 
is  the  fact  that  the  two  brothers  appear  in 
it  together;  for  this  tells  us  a  great  deal 
in  regard  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  home 
in  which  Tennyson's  boyhood  was  passed. 
The  seven  sons  and  four  daughters  of  the 
rector  of  Somersby  were  not  ordinary  chil- 


8  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

dren;  nor  was  their  education  conducted 
in  that  dull,  commonplace,  Gradgrind  spirit 
which  so  often  crushes  all  originality  out 
of  a  child.  The  doors  of  the  ideal  world 
were  opened  to  them  very  early ;  they 
were  encouraged  to  imagine  as  well  as  to 
think ;  they  peopled  their  playgrounds  with 
lofty  visions  of  kings  and  knights,  and 
fought  out  the  world-old  battles  of  right 
and  wrong  in  their  childish  games,  and 
wove  their  thoughts  of  virtue  and  courage 
and  truth  into  long  romances  with  which 
they  entertained  each  other  in  turn  at  the 
dinner-table.  The  air  of  the  house  was 
full  of  poetry.  Charles,  the  second  son. 
was  probably  the  leader  in  this  life  of 
fancy.  It  was  he,  at  all  events,  who  first 
directed  his  brother  Alfred,  his  junior  by 
a  year,  into  the  poetic  path.  One  Sunday 
morning,  when  Alfred  was  to  be  left  at 
home  alone,  Charles  gave  him  a  slate  and 
bade  him  write  some  verses  about  the 
flowers  in  the  garden.  The  task  was 
eagerly  accepted,  and  when  the  family  had 
returned  from  church,  the  little  boy  came 
with  his  slate  all  written  over  with  lines  of 
blank  verse,  to  ask  for  his  brother's  ap- 
proval.    Charles  read  them  over  gravely 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT.  9 

and  carefully,  with  the  earnestness  of  a 
childish  critic.  Then  he  gave  the  slate 
back  again,  saying,  ''  Yes,  you  can  write." 
It  was  a  very  kindly  welcome  to  the  world 
of  poetry,  and  I  doubt  whether  Alfred  Ten- 
nyson ever  heard  a  word  of  praise  that 
filled  him  with  more  true  delight  than 
this  fraternal  recognition. 

Having  found  each  other  as  kindred 
spirits,  the  two  boys  held  closely  together. 
They  were  intimate  friends.  They  helped 
and  cheered  and  criticised  each  other  in 
their  common  studies  and  writings.  It  is 
a  good  omen  for  genius  when  it  is  capable 
of  fraternity.  It  is  the  best  possible  safe- 
guard against  eccentricity  and  morbidness 
and  solitary  pride.  Charles  Lamb  was 
right  when  he  wrote  to  Coleridge :  "  O  my 
friend,  cultivate  the  filial  feelings  1  and  let 
no  man  think  himself  released  from  the 
kind  charities  of  relationship."  Tennyson's 
best  work  has  never  lost  the  insight  of 
the  heart.  And  if  there  were  no  other 
reason  for  valuing  these  Poems  by  Two 
Brothers,  we  should  still  prize  them  as  the 
monument  of  a  brotherly  love  to  which  the 
poet  has  paid  this  exquisite  tribute  in  In 
Me  mo ri am  : 


10  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

But  thou  and  I  are  one  in  kind, 
As  moulded  like  in  Nature's  mint; 
And  hill  and  wood  and  field  did  print 

The  same  sweet  forms  on  either  mind. 

For  us  the  same  cold  streamlet  curl'd 
Thro'  all  his  eddying  coves  ;  the  same 
All  winds  that  roam  the  twilight  came 

In  whispers  of  the  beauteous  world. 

At  one  dear  knee  we  proffer'd  vows; 
One  lesson  from  one  book  we  learn'd, 
Ere  childhood's  flaxen  ringlet  turn'd 

To  black  and  brown  on  kindred  brows. 

Another  noticeable  feature  in  this  book 
is  the  great  number  of  quotations  from 
modern  and  classical  authors.  Almost  all 
of  the  poems  have  mottoes.  I  glance  over 
them  at  random,  and  find  scraps  from 
Virgil,  Addison,  Gray,  Clare,  Cicero,  Hor- 
ace, Moore,  Byron,  Milton,  Racine,Claudian, 
Rousseau,  Scott,  Hume,  Ossian,  Lucretius, 
Sallust,  and  The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho. 
These  school-boys  must  have  loved  their 
books  well,  if  not  wisely. 

Moreover,  there  are  foot-notes  in  which 
they  tell  us  that  "  pight  is  a  word  used  by 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare,"  and  that  "none 
but  the  priests  could  interpret  the  Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphics,"  and  that  "  Ponce  de 
Leon  discovered  Florida  when  he  was  in 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT.  11 

search  of  the  fabled  fountain  of  youth," 
and  that  "  Apollonius  Rhodius  was  not 
born  at  Alexandria,  but  at  Naucratis." 
The  display  of  learning  is  so  immense  that 
it  becomes  amusing.  But  it  is  not  without 
significance,  for  it  distinctly  marks  Tenny- 
son as  one  of  those  who,  like  Milton,  were 
students  before  they  were  poets,  and  whose 
genius  did  not  develop  in  solitude,  but  in 

Converse  with  all  forma 
Of  the  many-sided  mind. 

The  volume  abounds,  as  I  have  already 
sai<l,  in  imitations  ;  indeed,  there  is  hardly 
a  piece  in  it  which  does  not  sound  like  an 
echo  of  some  other  poet.  The  influence 
which  is  most  clearly  marked  is  that  of 
Byron.  He  is  quoted  six  times.  There  is 
a  strong  flavour  of  his  dramatic  melancholy 
in  such  lines  as, 

I  wander  in  darkness  and  sorrow, 
Unfriended  and  cold  and  alone ; 

or, 

I  stand  like  some  lone  tower 

Of  former  days  remaining, 
Within  whose  place  of  power 

The  midnight  owl  is  plaining. 

It  is  evident  that  this  grief  could  not 
have  been   very  real  to  a  school-boy  be- 


12  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

tween  fifteen  and  eighteen.  It  was  like 
the  gloom  of  Shakespeare's  young  gentle- 
man of  France  who  was  "  sad  as  night  only 
for  wantonness."  And  the  fashion  of  the 
sadness  was  learned  from  the  author  of 
Childe  Harold.  His  metrical  manner  also 
is  copied  with  undisguised  enthusiasm.  The 
lad  who  wrote, 

Thou  shalt  come  like  a  storm  when  the  moonlight  is  dim, 
And  the  lake's  gloomy  bosom  is  full  to  the  brim  ; 
Thou  shalt  come  like  the  flash  in  the  darkness  of  night, 
When  the  wolves  of  the  forest  shall  howl  with  affright, 

had  certainly  been  captured  by  the  As- 
syrian who  came  down  like  the  wolf  on  the 
fold. 

After  reading  all  this  it  is  interesting 
to  hear  Tennyson  tell  in  his  own  words, 
spoken  many  years  afterward,  how  the 
news  of  Byron's  death  had  affected  him : 
"  Byron  was  dead.  I  thought  the  whole 
world  was  at  an  end.  I  thought  every- 
thing was  over  and  finished  for  every  one 
—  that  nothing  else  mattered.  I  remem- 
ber, I  walked  out  alone  and  carved  '  Byron 
is  dead'  into  the  sandstone." 

The  spell  of  this  passionate  devotion 
soon  passed  away,  but  perhaps  we  can  see 
some  lingering  trace  of  its  effects  in  poems 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT.  18 

as  late  as  Locksley  Hall  and  Maud.  Indeed, 
I  think  the  influence  of  Byron  upon  Tenny- 
son has  been  generally  underrated,  if  not 
completely  ignored. 

There  are  a  few  other  points  of  interest 
in  this  little  volume.  For  instance,  the 
variety  of  metrical  forms  indicates  an  un- 
usual freedom  and  catholicity  of  taste.  The 
result  of  such  a  miscellaneous  admiration 
of  all  styles,  from  the  finish  of  Horace  to 
the  formlessness  of  Ossian,  might  possibly 
be  nothing  better  than  a  facility  in  general 
imitation,  the  fluency  of  a  successful  paro- 
dist. But  if  a  boy  had  real  genius  it  would 
lead  him  on  to  try  experiments  in  many 
metres  until  he  mastered  those  which  were 
best  fitted  to  express  his  thoughts,  and 
gave  new  life  to  obsolete  forms  of  verse, 
and  finally,  perhaps,  created  some  original 
form.  And  this,  in  fact,  is  what  Alfred 
Tennyson  has  done.  He  has  attempted 
almost  every  kind  of  measure.  And  though 
his  early  efforts  were  so  irregular  that 
Coleridge  remarked  that  "  Tennyson  had 
begun  to  write  poetry  without  knowing 
what  metre  was,"  yet  in  the  end  he  made 
himself  one  of  the  most  musical  of  English 
singers. 


14  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

In  1893,  sixty-seven  years  after  the  orig- 
inal publication,  a  new  edition  of  Poems 
by  Two  Brothers  was  brought  out,  with  a 
preface  by  Hallam,  Lord  Tennyson,  the 
poet's  son.  In  this  edition  the  poems  were 
attributed,  as  far  as  possible,  to  their  re- 
spective authors,  on  the  evidence  of  the 
differences  in  the  handwriting  of  the 
manuscript  and  the  recollections  of  Mr. 
Frederick  Tennyson,  who,  it  now  appears, 
contributed  four  or  five  poems  to  his 
brothers'  volume. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  pieces 
which  show  the  greatest  freedom  and  ra- 
pidity, and  also,  it  must  be  admitted,  the 
greatest  irregularity  of  metrical  movement, 
are  those  which  bear  the  initials  A.  T. 
The  rule  which  is  so  painfully  familiar 
to  those  who  are  learning  to  skate  seems 
to  hold  good  for  those  who  are  learning  to 
write  verse.  Success  is  impossible  without 
a  good  many  tumbles. 

Scattered  through  these  early  verses  we 
find  a  number  of  thoughts  and  phrases 
which  Tennyson  used  again  in  his  more 
mature  poems.  I  will  give  a  few  illustra- 
tions of  these  parallel  passages. 

In  Remorse  we  find  the  lines : 


THE  FIRST  FLIGHT.  15 

To  life,  whose  every  hour  to  me 
Hath  been  increase  of  misery. 

The  Two  Voices  gives  us  the  same  thought: 

Thou  art  so  full  of  misery, 
Were  it  not  better  not  to  be  ? 

In  Midnight  there  is  a  reference  to 

the  glutting  ware 
That  saps  eternally  the  cold  gray  steep ; 

which  reminds  us  of 

Break,  break,  break, 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  Sea! 

In  Switzerland  the  poet  cries : 

O !  when  shall  Time 
Avenge  the  crime  ? 

and  in  The  Vision  of  Sin  he  says  again : 

It  was  a  crime 
Of  sense,  avenged  by  sense  that  wore  with  time. 

In  the   poem   on    Sublimity    we    find   the 

phrase  "  holds  communion  with  the  dead," 

which  occurs  again    in    one   of  the   most 

beautiful  passages  of  In  Memoriam. 

In  Egypt  we  find  : 

The  first  glitter  of  his  rising  beams 
Falls  on  the  broad-bas'd  pyramids  sublime. 

The  epithet  recurs  in  A  Fragment,  printed 

in  an  annual  in  1830 : 

The  great  pyramids, 
Broad-bas'd  amid  the  fleeting  sands. 


16  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

Other  passages  might  be  quoted  to  show 
the  connection  between  Tennyson's  earlier 
and  later  work.  It  is  one  of  his  charac- 
teristics that  he  uses  the  same  image  more 
than  once,  and  that  the  repetition  is  almost 
always  an  improvement.  But  it  will  be 
more  profitable  to  close  this  brief  intro- 
ductory essay  with  a  few  lines  which  are 
worthy  to  be  remembered  for  their  own 
merits,  and  which  belong  to  the  first  genu- 
ine poetry  of  Alfred  Tennyson.  True  and 
broad  descriptive  power  is  shown  in  such 
lines  as  these: 

Like  some  far  fire  at  night 
Along  the  dun  deep  streaming. 

A  wan,  dull,  lengthen'd  sheet  of  swimming  light 
Lies  the  broad  lake  — 

The  thunder  of  the  brazen  prows 
O'er  Actium's  ocean  rung. 

But  the  passage  which  exhibits  the  most 
sustained  vigour  of  expression  is  found  in 
the  poem  entitled  Persia.  It  is  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  great  king  contemplating  the 
ruin  of  his  empire.  He  spreads  (lie  dust 
upon  his  laurelled  head,  as  he  is  forced 

To  view  the  setting  of  that  star 
Which  beain'd  so  gorgeously  and  far 
O'er  Anatolia,  and  the  fane 
Of  Belu.s,  and  Caister's  plain, 


TEE  F1RBT  FLIGJIT.  17 

And  Sardis,  and  the  glittering  sands 

Of  bright  PaetoluA,  and  the  lauds 
Where  Croesus  held  his  rich  domain; 
And  further  east,  where  broadly  roll'd 
Old  Indus  pours  his  streams  of  gold ; 
And  southward  to  Cilicia's  shore, 
Whero  Cyduus  meets  the  billows'  roar; 
And  northward  far  to  Trebizonde, 

Itenown'd  for  kings  of  chivalry, 
Where  Hyssus  rolling  from  the  strand 

Disgorges  in  the  Kuxino  Sea  — 
The  Euxiue,  falsely  named,  which  whelms 
The  mariner  in  the  hoaviug  tide  — 
To  high  Siuope's  distant  realms, 
Where  cynics  rail'd  at  human  pride. 

This  is  not  perfect  poetry,  but  it  is  cer- 
tainly strong  verse.  It  is  glorified  nomen- 
clature. Milton  himself  need  not  have 
blushed  to  acknowledge  it.  The  boy  who 
could  write  like  this  before  he  was  eighteen 
years  old  knew  something,  at  least,  of  the 
music  and  magic  of  names.  If  we  may 
read  our  history,  like  our  Hebrew,  back- 
ward, we  can  detect  the  promise  of  a  great 
poet  in  the  swing  and  sweep  of  these  lines, 
and  recognize  the  wing-trial  of  genius  in 
Tennyson's  first  flight. 


THE  PALACE  OF  ART. 


THE  PALACE  OF  ART. 

The  year  of  our  Lord  eighteen  hundred 
and  thirty-three  was  a  period  of  waiting  and 
uncertainty  in  English  literature.  Twelve 
years  had  passed  since  the  brief,  bright 
light  of  Keats  went  out  at  Rome  ;  eleven 
years,  since  the  waters  of  Spezzia's  treach- 
erous bay  closed  over  the  head  of  Shelley ; 
nine  years,  since  the  wild  flame  of  Byron's 
heart  burned  away  at  Missolonghi ;  a  few 
months,  since  the  weary  hand  of  Scott  had 
at  last  let  fall  the  wizard's  wand.  The 
new  leaders  were  dead;  the  old  leaders  were 
silent.  Wordsworth  was  reclining  on  the 
dry  laurels  of  his  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets  at 
Rydal  Mount ;  Coleridge  was  pacing  up  and 
down  the  garden-path  at  Highgate  talking 
transcendental  metaphysics ;  Southey  had 
ceased  writing  what  he  called  poetry  ; 
Thomas  Moore  was  warbling  his  old  songs 
to  an  audience  which  had  almost  begun  to 
weary  of  them.  The  coming  man  had  not 
yet  arrived.     Dickens  was  a  short-hand  re- 


22  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON 

porter  in  the  House  of  Commons;  Thack- 
eray was  running  through  his  property  in 
the  ruinous  dissipation  of  newspaper-pub- 
lishing ;  Carlyle  was  wrestling  with  poverty 
and  the  devil  at  Craigenputtock ;  Robert 
Browning,  a  youth  of  twenty,  was  travelling 
in  Italy;  Matthew  Arnold  and  Arthur 
Clough  were  boys  at  Rugby ;  William 
Morris  and  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne 
were  yet  unborn.  In  this  somewhat  barren 
and  unpromising  interval,  the  poetical  repu- 
tation of  Mr.  Alfred  Tennyson,  late  of  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  was  trembling  in 
the  balance  of  Criticism. 

Criticism  with  a  large  C,  you  will  please 
to  observe;  for  the  reign  of  their  mighty 
Highnesses,  the  Reviewers,  was  still  un- 
shaken. Seated  upon  their  lofty  thrones  in 
London  and  Edinburgh,  they  weighed  the 
pretensions  of  all  new-comers  into  their 
realms  with  severity  if  not  with  impartial- 
ity, and  meted  out  praise  and  blame  with  a 
royal  hand.  In  those  rude  days  there  was 
no  trifling  with  a  book  in  little  "  notices " 
of  mild  censure  or  tepid  approbation, — 
small  touches  which,  if  unfavourable,  hardly 
hurt  more  than  pin-pricks,  and  if  favoura- 
ble, hardly  help  more  than  gentle  pats  upon 


THE  PALACE  OF  ART.  23 

the  head.  That  is  the  suave,  homoeopathic 
method  of  modern  times :  but  then  —  in 
the  days  of  Herod  the  king  —  it  was  either 
the  accolade  or  decapitation.  Many  an  in- 
nocent had  the  dreadful  Gifford  slaughtered, 
and  though  he  had  done  his  last  book,  there 
were  other  men,  like  Wilson  and  Croker 
and  Lockhart,  who  still  understood  and 
practiced  the  art  of  speedy  dispatch.  Black- 
wood and  The  Quarterly  still  clothed  them- 
selves  with  Olympian  thunder, 

11  And  that  two-handed  engine  at  their  door, 
Stood  ready  to  smite  once  and  smite  no  more." 

It  was  before  this  stern  tribunal  that 
young  Tennyson  had  made  his  appearance 
in  1830  with  a  slim  volume  of  Poems, 
Chiefly  Lyrical.  They  were  fifty-three  in 
number,  and  covered  only  one  hundred  and 
fifty-four  pages  ;  yet  within  that  narrow 
compass  at  least  a  score  of  different  metres 
were  attempted  with  amazing  skill,  and  the 
range  of  subjects  extended  from  The  Mer- 
man to  Supposed  Confessions  of  a  Second- 
rate  Sensitive  Mind  not  in  Unity  with  It- 
self. One  can  easily  imagine  the  confusion 
and  scorn  which  the  latter  title  must  have 
excited  in  the  first-rate  unsensitive  mind  of 
an  orthodox  Edinburgh  Reviewer.    Nor  were 


24  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

the  general  style  and  quality  of  the  poems 
calculated  to  mollify  these  feelings.  Dainty 
in  finish,  pre-raphaelite  in  their  minute 
painting  of  mosses  and  flowers  and  in  their 
super-subtle  shading  of  emotions,  musical 
yet  irregular,  modern  in  sentiment,  yet 
tinged  with  some  archaic  mannerisms,  the 
poems  taken  altogether  concealed  the  real 
strength  of  some  of  them  (such  as  Mariana, 
The  Poet,  Ode  to  Memory,  and  The  De- 
serted House,}  under  an  appearance  of 
delicacy  and  superficiality.  Arthur  Henry 
Hallam  praised  them,  but  that  counted  for 
nothing,  because  he  was  Tennyson's  friend. 
The  Westminster  Review  praised  them,  but 
that  counted  for  little,  because  it  belonged 
to  the  party  of  literary  revolt.  Leigh  Hunt 
praised  them,  but  that  counted  f&r  worse 
than  nothing,  because  he  was  the  arch-here- 
tic of  poetry,  the  leader  of  the  so-called 
"  Cockney  school."  The  authoritative  voice 
of  Criticism  was  not  heard  until  "  Christo- 
pher North  "  took  up  the  new  poet  in  Black- 
wood, and  administered  the  castigation  which 
he  thought  most  necessary  and  salutary. 
Mingling  a  little  condescending  encourage- 
ment with  his  condemnation,  and  holding 
out  tho  hope  that  if  "  Alfred  "  would  only 


THE  PALACE   OF  ART.  25 

reform  his  style  and  get  rid  of  his  cockney 
admirers  he  might  some  day  write  something 
worth  reading,  the  stern  magister  set  to  work 
in  the  meantime  to  demolish  the  dainty  lyrics. 
Drivel,  and  more  dismal  drivel,  and  even 
more  dismal  drivel  was  what  he  called  them ; 
and  in  winding  up  his  remarks  upon  the 
song  entitled  The  Owl,  he  said:  "Alfred 
himself  is  the  greatest  owl ;  all  he  wants  is 
to  be  shot,  stuffed,  and  stuck  in  a  glass  case, 
to  be  made  immortal  in  a  museum." 

Truly  this  was  Criticism  of  the  athletic 
order;  and  the  humour  of  it  lies  in  the 
unconscious  absence  of  wit.  Six  months 
after  this  article  was  printed,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1832,  Mr.  Tennyson  put  out  his  sec- 
ond volume.  Its  title-page  ran  as  follows : 
Poems  by  Alfred  Tennyson.  London : 
Edward  Moxon,  64,  New  Bond  Street. 
MDCCCXXXIII.  It  is,  therefore,  prop- 
erly speaking,  the  edition  of  1833. 

It  lies  on  my  desk  now,  a  slender  vol- 
ume of  one  hundred  and  sixty-three  pages, 
with  Barry  Cornwall's  autograph  on  the  fly- 
leaf, and  his  pencil-marks  running  all  along 
the  mai'gins.  It  contains  only  thirty  poems, 
but  among  them  are  The  Lady  of  Shalott, 
The  Miller's  Daughter,  (Enone,  The  Palace 


i 


26  THE  POETRt  OF  TENNYSON. 

of  Art,  The  Lotos-Eaters,  and  A  Dream  of 
Fair  Women. 

It  was  evident  at  once  that  the  young 
poet  had  not  changed  his  style,  though  he 
had  enriched  it.  Fuller  and  stronger  were 
his  notes,  more  manly  and  of  a  wider  range ; 
but  his  singing  was  still  marked  by  the 
same  lyrical  freedom,  the  same  delicacy  of 
imagination,  the  same  exquisite  and  uncon- 
ventional choice  of  words,  the  same  peculiar 
blending  of  the  classic  with  the  romantic 
spirit,  —  qualities  which  to  us  have  become 
so  familiar  that  we  can  hardly  realize  how 
fresh  and  strange  they  must  have  seemed  to 
the  readers  of  half  a  century  ago.  It  was 
clear  enough  that  this  new  writer  was  no 
mere  disciple  of  Leigh  Hunt,  or  neophyte  of 
the  Cockney  school,  to  be  frightened  back 
into  the  paths  of  propriety  by  brutal  thun- 
ders. He  might  be  moving  on  the  same 
lines  which  Keats  had  begun  to  follow,  but 
he  was  going  beyond  his  leader ;  he  was 
introducing  a  new  spirit  and  method  into 
English  verse;  he  bid  fair  to  become  the 
master  of  a  new  school  of  poetry.  In  the 
opinion  of  the  reviewers  he  needed  to  be 
dealt  with  mildly,  but  firmly.  And  this 
time  it  was  not  "  crusty  Christopher,"  but  a 


THE  PALACE  OF  ART.  2'c 

more  dangerous  critic  who  undertook  the 
task.  The  review  of  Tennyson's  poems 
which  appeared  in  the  Quarterly  for  July, 
1833,  is  one  of  the  cleverest  and  bitterest 
things  ever  written,  and  though  unacknow- 
ledged, it  has  always  been  attributed  to  the 
editor,  James  Gibson  Lockhart,  sometimes 
called  "  the  scorpion,"  because  of  a  certain 
peculiarity  in  the  latter  end  of  his  articles. 

He  begins  in  a  tone  of  ironical  compli- 
ment, apologizing  for  never  having  seen  Mr. 
Tennyson's  first  volume,  and  proposing  to 
repair  his  unintentional  neglect  by  now  in- 
troducing to  the  admiration  of  sequestered 
readers  "  a  new  prodigy  of  genius,  another 
and  a  brighter  star  of  that  galaxy  or  milky 
way  of  poetry  of  which  the  lamented  Keats 
was  the  harbinger."  He  proceeds  to  offer 
what  he  calls  "  a  tribute  of  unmingled  ap- 
probation," and  selecting  a  few  specimens 
of  Mr.  Tennyson's  singular  genius,  "  to 
point  out  now  and  then  the  peculiar  bril- 
liancy of  some  of  the  gems  that  irradiate 
his  poetical  crown."  This  means,  in  plain 
words,  to  hold  up  the  whole  performance  to 
ridicule  by  commending  its  weakest  points 
in  extravagant  mock-laudation,  and  passing 
over  its  best  points  in  silence.     A  method 


28  TEE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

more  unfair  and  exasperating  can  hardly  be 
imagined.  It  is  like  applauding  a  musician 
for-  every  false  note.  Lockbart's  "  unmin- 
gled  approbation"  was  a  thousand  times 
more  severe  than  old  Christopher's  blunt 
and  often  clumsy  abuse.  It  was  as  if  one 
had  praised  Pope  for  his  amiable  temper,  or 
Wordsworth  for  his  keen  sense  of  humour. 

And  yet,  —  after  all,  —  in  spite  of  the 
malicious  spirit  and  the  unjust  method  of 
the  article,  —  we  may  as  well  be  honest  and 
confess  that  on  many  points  Lockhart  was 
right.  His  hard,  formal,  opinionated,  Cale- 
donian mind  could  not  possibly  appreciate 
the  merits  of  Tennyson,  but  it  could  and  it 
did  detect  the  blemishes  of  his  earlier  work. 
In  almost  every  case  the  shaft  of  the  re- 
viewer's irony  found  the  joint  in  the  poet's 
armour  and  touched  some  vulnerable  spot. 

The  proof  of  this  is  furnished  by  Tenny- 
son himself.  For  ten  years  he  preserved  an 
almost  unbroken  silence.  When  at  length 
he  published  his  Poems,  in  Two  Volumes, 
in  1842,  he  was  recognized  immediately  as 
the  poet,  not  of  a  coterie,  but  of  England. 
The  majestic  blank-verse  of  Morte  a"  Arthur, 
the  passionate  force  of  Locksley  Hall,  the 
sweet  English  beauty  of  Dora,  The  Garden- 


THE  PALACE  OF  ART.  29 

er'.s  Daughter,  and  The  Talking  Oak,  the 
metaphysical  depth  and  human  intensity  of 
The  Two  Voices  and  The  Vision  of  Sin,  — 
and  perhaps  more  than  all  the  simple,  magi- 
cal pathos  of  that  undying  song, 

Break,  break,  break 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  Sea ! 

won  the  admiration  of  readers  of  every 
class,  and  Tennyson  was  acknowledged,  in 
the  language  of  Wordsworth,  as  decidedly 
the  first  of  our  living  poets.  But  no  less 
significant  than  these  new  poems,  in  the  his- 
tory of  his  genius,  was  the  form  in  which 
his  earlier  poems  were  reprinted.  The  edi- 
tion of  1842  contained  a  selection  from  the 
edition  of  1 833  ;  and  it  is  most  remarkable 
that  all  of  the  weaker  pieces  which  Lockhart 
had  criticised  most  severely  were  omitted, 
while  those  which  were  retained  had  been 
so  carefully  pruned  and  corrected  as  to  seem 
almost  rewritten.  There  is  an  immense  im- 
portance, for  example,  in  such  a  slight 
change  as  the  omission  of  the  accent  from 
words  like  charmed  and  apparelled.  It  in- 
dicates a  desire  to  avoid  even  the  appear- 
ance of  affectation.  Or  take  this  passage 
from  The  Miller's  Daughter  in  its  first 
form  :  — 


30  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

Remember  yon  that  pleasant  day 

When  after  roving  in  the  woods, 
('Twas  April  then),  I  came  and  lay 

Beneath  the  gummy  chestnut-buds 
That  glistened  in  the  April  blue. 

Upon  the  slope  so  smooth  and  cool 
I  lay  and  never  thought  of  you 

But  angled  in  the  deep  mill-pooL 

A  water-rat  from  off  the  bank 

Plunged  in  the  stream.     With  idle  car* 
Dowulooking  through  the  sedges  rank 

I  saw  your  troubled  image  there. 
Upon  the  dark  and  dimpled  beck 

It  wandered  like  a  floating  light, 
A  full  fair  form,  a  warm  white  neck 

And  two  white  arms  —  how  rosy  white ! 

These  are  very  pretty  lines,  and  doubtless 
quite  true  to  nature,  for  the  buds  of  the 
chestnut  are  very  sticky  in  April,  and  the 
water-rat  has  a  habit  of  diving  suddenly  into 
the  water.  But  as  Mr.  Lockhart  politely 
observed,  the  accumulation  of  such  tender 
images  as  the  gummy  buds  and  the  plun- 
ging rat  was  somewhat  unusual  and  disturb- 
ing. Tennyson  saw  the  justice  of  the  crit- 
icism. He  recognized  that  the  canon  of 
truth  to  nature  must  be  supplemented  by  the 
canon  of  symmetry  in  art,  and  that  facts 
which  are  incongruous  and  out  of  harmony 
must  not  be  recorded.     The  water-rat  was 


THE  PALACE    OF  ART.  31 

not  profoundly  suggestive  of  love  at  first 
sight.  Moreover,  one  who  was  looking  up 
at  the  chestnut-buds  would  not  have  noticed 
their  stickiness,  but  only  their  shining  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  wind.  Here,  then, 
is  the  new  version  of  the  passage,  quite  as 
true  but  far  more  poetical,  and  made  sim- 
pler by  a  more  careful  art :  — 

But,  Alice,  what  an  hour  was  that, 

When  after  roving  in  the  woods 
('Twas  April  then),  I  came  and  sat 

Below  the  chestnuts,  when  their  buds 
Were  glistening  to  the  breezy  blue ; 

And  on  the  slope,  an  absent  fool 
I  cast  me  down,  nor  thought  of  you, 

But  angled  in  the  higher  pool. 

Then  leapt  a  trout.     In  lazy  mood 

I  watch'd  the  little  circles  die ; 
They  past  into  the  level  flood, 

And  there  a  vision  caught  my  eye ; 
The  reflex  of  a  beauteous  form, 

A  glowing  arm,  a  gleaming  neck, 
As  when  a  sunbeam  wavers  warm 

Within  the  dark  aud  dimpled  beck. 

Now  a  poet  who  could  take  criticism  in 
this  fashion  and  use  it  to  such  good  purpose, 
was  certainly  neither  weak  nor  wayward. 
Weighed  in  the  balance,  he  was  not  found 
wanting  but  steadily  growing.  He  would 
not  abandon  his  art  at  the  voice  of  censure, 


32  THE  POETRY   OF   TENNYSON. 

but  correct  and  perfect  it,  until  it  stood  com- 
plete  and  sound  beyond  the  reach  of  censure. 
The  method  and  the  result  of  this  process  of 
self-criticism  —  which  Tennyson  has  prac- 
ticed more  patiently  and  successfully  than 
any  other  poet  —  may  be  traced  most  clearly 
in  the  history  of  The  Palace  of  Art,  the  long- 
est  and  most  important  of  the  1833  poems. 
Nor  can  I  think  of  any  better  way  to  study 
the  unfolding  of  his  genius  and  the  develop- 
ment of  his  style,  than  to  observe  carefully 
the  number  and  nature  and  purpose  of  the 
changes  which  he  has  made  in  this  poem. 

The  poem  is  an  allegory.  Its  meaning 
is  clearly  defined  in  the  dedication  to  an 
unnamed  friend.  Its  object  is  to  exhibit  a 
gifted  but  selfish  soul,  in  its  endeavours  to 
live  alone  in  its  own  enchanted  world  of  re- 
fined and  consummate  pleasures,  without  car- 
ing for  the  interests  or  the  sufferings  of  the 
great  world  of  mankind.  The  lesson  which 
the  poet  desires  to  teach  is  that  such  a  life 
must  be  a  failure  and  carry  its  punishment 
within  itself.  It  is  an  aesthetic  protest 
against  asstheticism.  But  it  is  worthy  of 
notice  that,  while  the  dedication  in  the  first 
edition  was  addressed  to  a  member  of  the 
aesthetic  class,  — 


THE  PALACE   OF  ART.  33 

You  are  an  artist,  and  will  understand 
Its  many  lesser  meanings,  — 

in  the  second  edition  these  lines  have  disap- 
peared. It  is  as  if  the  poet  desired  to  give 
a  wider  range  to  his  lesson ;  as  if  he  would 
say,  "  You  are  a  man,  and  no  matter  what 
your  occupation  may  be,  you  will  feel  the 
truth  of  this  allegory." 

This  first  alteration  is  characteristic.  It 
shows  us  the  transformation  of  Tennyson's 
feelings  and  purposes  during  those  eventful 
ten  years  of  silence.  He  had  grown  broader 
and  deeper.  He  was  no  longer  content  to 
write  for  a  small  and  select  circle  of  readers. 
His  sympathies  were  larger  and  more  hu- 
mane. He  began  to  feel  that  he  had  a  coun- 
try, and  patriotism  inspired  him  to  write  for 
England.  He  began  to  feel  that  the  lives 
of  common  men  and  women  were  full  of  ma- 
terials for  poetry,  and  philanthropy  inspired 
him  to  speak  as  a  man  to  his  fellow-men. 
This  change  was  prophesied  in  the  first 
conception  of  The  Palace  of  Art,  but  when 
the  fulfilment  came,  it  was  so  thorough  that 
it  had  power  to  remould  the  form  of  the 
prophecy  itself. 

The  Palace  which  the  poet  built  for  his 
soul  is  described  as  standing  on  a  lofty  table- 


34  THE  POETRY   OF   TENNYSON. 

land,  secure  and  inaccessible,  for  his  first 
object  was  to  dwell  apart  from  the  world. 
Then  follows,  in  the  original  edition,  a  de- 
scription of  its  long-sounding  corridors, 

Roofed  with  thick  plates  of  green  and  orange  glass, 
Ending  in  stately  rooms. 

In  the  second  edition  the  architect's  good 
taste  has  discarded  this  conservatory  effect 
and  these  curiously  assorted  colors.  He 
describes  instead  the  surroundings  of  the 
Palace,  with  its  four  great  courts  and  its 
foaming  fountains,  its  smooth  lawns  and 
branching  cloisters.  He  draws  a  gilded  par- 
apet around  the  roof,  and  shows  the  distant 
landscape.  In  following  this  order  he  has 
given  reality  and  dignity  to  his  structure,  so 
that  it  seems  less  like  a  picture-gallery  and 
more  like  a  royal  mansion. 

Then  he  leads  the  soul  through  the  differ- 
ent rooms,  and  describes  the  tapestries  on 
the  walls.  As  the  poem  stood  at  first  these 
included  the  Madonna,  Venus  Anadyomene, 
St.  Cecily,  Arthur  in  the  valley  of  Avilion, 
Kriemhilt  pouring  the  Nibelungen  gold  into 
the  Rhine,  Europa,  with  her  hand  grasping 
the  golden  horn  of  the  bull,  and  Ganymede 
borne  upward  by  the  eagle,  together  with 
landscapes  of  forest  and  pasture,  sea-coast, 


THE  PALACE   OF  ART.  35 

mountain-glen,  and  woodland,  interspersed 
with  gardens  and  vineyards.  When  the 
Palace  was  changed,  Venus  and  Kriemhilt 
disappeared,  and  Europa  occupied  a  smaller 
place.  Pictures  of  Numa  and  his  wise 
wood-nymphs,  Indian  Cama  seated  on  his 
summer  throne,  and  the  porch  of  Moham- 
med's Paradise  thronged  with  houris,  were 
added.  And  among  the  landscapes  there 
were  two  new  scenes,  one  of  cattle  feeding 
by  a  river,  and  another  of  reapers  at  their 
sultry  toil. 

The  soul  pauses  here,  in  the  first  edition, 
and  indulges  in  a  little  rhapsody  on  the  evo- 
lution of  the  intellect.  This  disappears  in 
the  second  edition,  and  we  pass  directly  from 
the  chambers  hung  with  arras  into  the  great 
hall,  the  central  apartment  of  the  Palace. 
Here  the  architect  had  gathered,  at  first,  a 
collection  of  portraits  of  great  men  which 
was  so  catholic  in  its  taste  as  to  be  almost 
motley.  Lockhart  laughed  derisively  when 
he  saw  the  group.  "  Milton,  Shakespeare, 
Dante,  Homer,  Michael  Angelo,  Martin  Lu- 
ther, Francis  Bacon,  Cervantes,  Calderon, 
King  David,  the  Halicarnassean  (quaere, 
which  of  them  ?),  Alfred  himself  (presum- 
ably  not  the  poet), 


36  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Isaiah  with  fierce  Ezekiel, 

Swarth  Moses  by  the  Coptic  sea, 

Plato,  Petrarca,  Livy,  Raphael, 
And  eastern  Confutzee." 

This  reminds  the  critic  of  a  verse  in  that 
Hibernian  poem,  The  Groves  of  Blarney, 
and  he  wonders  whether  Mr.  Tennyson  was 
not  thinking  of  the  Blarney  collection  — 

"  Statues  growing  that  noble  place  in 
Of  heathen  goddesses  most  rare ; 
Homer,  Plutarch,  and  Nebuchadnezzar, 
All  standing  naked  in  the  open  air." 

But  in  the  revised  Palace  all  these  have  been 
left  out,  except  the  first  four,  and  the  archi- 
tect has  added  a  great 

mosaic  choicely  plann'd 
With  cycles  of  the  human  tale 
Of  this  wide  world,  the  times  of  every  land 
So  wrought,  they  will  not  fail. 

The  people  here,  a  beast  of  burden  slow, 

Toil'd  onward,  prick'd  with  goads  and  stings ; 

Here  play'd  a  tiger,  rolling  to  and  fro 
The  heads  and  crowns  of  kings ; 

Here  rose  an  athlete,  strong  to  break  or  bind 
All  force  in  bonds  that  might  endure, 

And  here  once  more  like  some  sick  man  declin'd 
And  trusted  any  cure. 

This  mosaic  covered  the  floor,  and  over  these 
symbols  of  struggling  humanity  the  vainglo- 
rious soul  trod  proudly  as  she  went  up  to 


THE   PALACE    OF  ART  37 

take  her  throne  between  the  shining  win- 
dows on  which  the  faces  of  Plato  and  Veru- 
lam  were  blazoned.  In  the  first  edition 
there  was  a  gorgeous  description  of  the  ban- 
quet with  which  she  regaled  herself;  piles 
of  flavorous  fruits,  musk  -  scented  blooms, 
ambrosial  pulps  and  juices,  graceful  chalices 
of  curious  wine,  and  a  service  of  costly  jars 
and  bossed  salvers.  Thus  she  feasted  in 
solitary  state,  and 

ere  young  night  divine 
Crowned  dying  day  with  stars, 

Making-  sweet  close  of  his  delicious  toils, 
She  lit  white  streams  of  dazzling  gas, 

And  soft  and  fragrant  flames  of  precious  oils 
In  moons  of  purple  glass- 

This  was  written  when  the  use  of  gas  for 
illuminating  purposes  was  new,  and  not  con- 
sidered um-omantic.  When  the  Palace  was 
remodelled  the  gas  was  turned  off,  and  the 
supper  was  omitted.  The  soul  was  lifted 
above  mere  sensual  pleasures,  and  sat  listen- 
ing to  her  own  song  and  rejoicing  in  her 
royal  seclusion. 

There  are  a  great  many  minor  alterations 
scattered  through  the  poem,  which  I  have 
not  time  to  notice.  Some  of  them  are  mere 
changes  of  spelling,  like  Avilion,  which  be- 


38  TEE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

comes  Avalon ;  and  Cecily,  which  is  changed 
to  Cicely  in  1842,  and  back  again  to  Cecily 
in  later  editions ;  and  sweet  Europa's  man- 
tle, which  at  first  "  blew  unclasped,"  and 
then  lost  its  motion  and  got  a  touch  of  colour, 
becoming  "blue,  unclasped,"  and  finally  re- 
turned to  its  original  form.  (Some  one  has 
said  that  a  painter  would  not  have  been 
forced  to  choose  between  colour  and  motion, 
for  he  could  have  made  the  mantle  at  once 
blue  and  blowing.)  Corrections  and  re-cor- 
rections such  as  these  show  how  carefully 
Mr.  Tennyson  seeks  the  perfection  of  lan- 
guage. 

But  the  most  interesting  change  yet  to  be 
noted  is  directly  due  to  Lockhart;s  sharp 
criticism ;  at  least,  it  was  he  who  first  pointed 
out  the  propriety  of  at,  in  his  usual  sarcastic 
way.  "  In  this  poem,"  said  he,  "we  first 
observed  a  stroke  of  art  which  we  think  very 
ingenious.  No  one  who  has  ever  written 
verses  but  must  have  felt  the  pain  of  eras- 
ing some  happy  line,  some  striking  phrase, 
which,  however  excellent  in  itself,  did  not 
exactly  suit  the  place  for  which  it  was  des- 
tined. How  curiously  does  an  author  mould 
and  remould  the  plastic  verse  in  order  to  fit 
in  the  favorite  thought ;  and  when  he  finds' 


THE  PALACE  OF  ART.  39 

that  he  cannot  introduce  it,  as  Corporal 
Trim  says,  any  how,  with  what  reluctance 
does  he  at  last  reject  the  intractable,  but 
still  cherished,  offspring  of  his  brain.  Mr. 
Tennyson  manages  this  delicate  matter  in  a 
new  and  better  way.  He  says,  with  great 
candour  and  simplicity,  '  If  this  poem  were 
not  already  too  long  1  should  have  added  the 
following  stanzas?  and  then  he  adds  them  ; 
or,  '  I  intended  to  have  added  something  on 
statuary,  but  I  found  it  very  difficult ;  but 
I  have  finished  the  statues  of  Elijah  and 
Olynopias ;  judge  whether  I  have  succeeded ; ' 
and  then  we  have  those  two  statues.  This 
is  certainly  the  most  ingenious  device  that 
has  ever  come  under  our  observation  for 
reconciling  the  rigour  of  criticism  with  the 
indulgence  of  parental  partiality." 

The  passages  to  which  Mr.  Lockhart  al- 
ludes in  this  delicious  paragraph  are  the 
notes  appended  to  pages  73  and  83  of  the 
original  edition.  The  former  of  these  con- 
tains four  stanzas  on  sculptures ;  the  latter 
gives  a  description  of  one  of  the  favourite 
occupations  of  the  self-indulgent  soul,  which 
is  too  fine  to  be  left  unquoted.  Above  the 
Palace  a  massive  tower  was  built : 


40  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

Hither,  when  all  the  deep  unsounded  skies 
Were  shuddering  with  silent  stars,  she  clomb, 

And,  as  with  optic  glasses,  her  keen  eyes 
Pierced  thro'  the  mystic  dome, 

Regions  of  lucid  matter  taking  forms, 

Brushes  of  fire,  hazy  gleams, 
Clusters  and  beds  of  worlds,  and  bee-like  swarms 

Of  suns,  and  starry  streams- 
She  saw  the  snowy  poles  of  moonless  Mars, 

That  marvellous  round  of  milky  light 
Below  Orion,  and  those  double  stars 

Whereof  the  one  more  bright 

Is  circled  by  the  other. 

Bat,  however  admirable  these  lines  may 
seem,  and  however  much  we  may  regret  their 
loss,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  manner 
of  their  introduction  was  incongruous  and 
absurd.  It  was  like  saying,  "  This  Palace 
is  not  to  have  a  hall  of  statues,  but  I  will 
simply  put  on  a  small  wing  as  a  sample  of 
what  is  not  to  be  done.  And  there  is  no 
room  for  an  observatory,  but  I  will  construct 
one  in  order  that  you  may  see  what  it  would 
have  been  like."  The  poet  himself  seems 
to  have  recognized  that  the  device  was  too 
"  ingenious  "  to  be  dignified  ;  and  in  1842 
he  restored  the  symmetry  of  the  Palace  by 
omitting  the  annex-buildings  entirely. 


THE  PALACE    OF  ART.  41 

And  now  let  us  sum  up  the  changes  which 
have  been  made  in  the  Palace  since  it  was 
first  constructed.  For  this  purpose  it  will 
be  better  to  take  Macmillan's  edition  of 
1884  (which  probably  represents  the  final 
text)  and  lay  it  beside  the  edition  of  1833. 

In  1833  the  poem,  including  the  notes, 
contained  eighty-three  stanzas ;  in  1884  it 
has  only  seventy-five.  Of  the  original  num 
ber  thirty-one  have  been  entirely  omitted  — 
in  other  words,  more  than  a  third  of  the 
structure  has  been  pulled  down ;  and,  in 
place  of  these,  twenty-two  new  stanzas  have 
been  added,  making  a  change  of  fifty-three 
stanzas.  The  fifty-two  that  remain  have 
almost  all  been  retouched  and  altered,  so 
that  very  few  stand  to-day  in  the  same  shape 
which  they  had  at  the  beginning.  I  suppose 
there  is  no  other  poem  in  the  language,  not 
even  among  the  writings  of  Tennyson,  which 
has  been  worked  over  so  carefully  as  this. 

But  what  is  the  significance  of  all  this 
toilsome  correction  and  remodelling  ?  How 
does  the  study  of  it  help  us  to  a  better  com- 
prehension of  the  poet  ?  I  think  it  shows  us, 
first  of  all,  the  difference  between  the  intel- 
lectual temper  of  Tennyson  and  that  of  a 
man  who  is  possessed  by  his  theories,  instead 


f 


42  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

of  possessing  them,  and  whom  they  carry 
away  into  eccentricity.  Suppose,  for  exam- 
ple, that  such  an  article  as  Lockhart's  had 
been  written  about  Wordsworth's  early 
work,  what  would  he  have  done  ?  Or  rather, 
for  the  case  is  not  adscititious  but  actual, 
what  did  he  do  when  the  Philistines  fell 
upon  him  ?  He  replied  to  the  attacks  upon 
Goody  Blake  by  publishing  Peter  Bell; 
he  insisted  upon  using  the  language  of 
common  life  even  when  he  had  nothing  to 
say;  he  justified  his  poem  upon  an  idiot 
and  his  pony,  by  producing  a  much  longer 
one  upon  a  pedlar  and  his  ass.  But  with 
Tennyson  the  effect  of  criticism  was  differ- 
ent. He  had  the  saving  sense  of  humour, 
and  could  see  the  point  of  a  clever  jest  even 
when  it  was  directed  against  himself.  He 
was  willing  to  learn  even  from  an  enemy, 
and  he  counted  no  pains  too  great  to  take  if 
only  he  could  succeed  in  cleansing  his  work 
from  blemishes  and  freeing  it  from  "  the  de- 
fects of  its  virtues."  The  result  of  this, 
merely  from  a  technical  point  of  view,  is 
seen  in  the  Palace  of  Art.  It  has  gained 
in  rebuilding.  The  omission  of  unnecessary 
decoration  is  a  good  rule  for  the  architect. 
And  though  we  lose  many  rich  and  polished 


TEE  PALACE   OF  ART.  43 

details,  beautiful  as  the  capitals  of  Corin- 
thian pillars,  their  absence  leaves  the  Palace 
standing  more  clear  and  noble  before  the 
inward  eye. 

But  when  we  look  at  the  alterations  from 
a  higher  point,  when  we  consider  their  ef- 
fect upon  the  meaning  of  the  poem,  we  see 
how  immense  has  been  the  gain.  The  new 
lines  and  stanzas  are  framed,  almost  with- 
out exception,  with  a  wondrous  skill  to  in- 
tensify the  allegory.  Touch  after  touch 
brings  out  the  picture  of  the  self-centred 
soul :  the  indifference  that  hardens  into 
cruel  contempt,  the  pride  that  verges  on  in- 
sanity, the  insatiate  lust  of  pleasure  that  de- 
vours all  the  world  can  give  and  then  turns 
to  feed  upon  itself,  the  empty  darkness'  of 
the  life  without  love.  It  seems  as  if  the  poet 
had  felt  more  deeply,  as  he  grew  older,  the 
need  of  making  this  picture  clear  and  strong. 
Take  for  instance  these  two  stanzas  which  he 
has  added  to  the  poem,  describing  the  exul- 
tation of  the  soul  in  her  exclusive  joy :  — 

O  God-like  isolation  which  art  mine, 

I  can  but  count  thee  perfect  gain, 
What  time  I  watch  the  darkening  droves  of  swine 

That  range  on  yonder  plain. 


44  THE  POETRY   OF   TENNYSON. 

In  filthy  sloughs  they  roll  a  prurient  skin, 
They  graze  and  wallow,  breed  and  sleep  ; 

And  oft  some  brainless  devil  enters  in, 
And  drives  them  to  the  deep. 

These  lines  are  essential  to  the  understand- 
ing of  the  poem.  They  touch  the  very  core 
of  the  sin  which  defiled  the  Palace  and  de- 
stroyed the  soul's  happiness.  It  was  not 
merely  that  she  loved  beauty  and  music  and 
fragrance ;  but  that  in  her  love  for  these 
she  lost  her  moral  sense,  denied  her  human 
duties,  and  scorned,  instead  of  pitying  and 
helping,  her  brother-men  who  lived  on  the 
plain  below.  This  is  the  sin  of  selfishj>ride, 
the  sin  which  drives  out  the  Christ  because 
He  eats  with  publicans  and  sinners,  the  un- 
pardonable sin  which  makes  its  own  hell. 
~""T*  And  it  is  just  this  sin,  the  poet  declares,  that 
transforms  the  Palace  of  Art  into  a  prison 
of  despair. 

Is  not  this  a  lesson  of  which  the  age  has 
need  ?  The  chosen  few  are  saying  to  their 
disciples  that  the  world  is  a  failure,  humanity 
a  mass  of  wretchedness,  religion  an  outworn 
dream,  —  the  only  refuge  for  the  elect  of 
wealth  and  culture  is  in  art.  Retreat  into 
your  gardens  of  pleasure.  Let  the  plague 
take  the  city.     Delight  your  eyes  with   all 


THE  PALACE    OF  ART.  45 

things  fair  and  sweet.  So  shall  it  be  well 
with  you  and  your  soul  shall  dwell  at  ease 
while  the  swine  perish.  It  is  the  new  gospel 
of  pessimism  which  despairs  of  the  common 
people  because  it  despises  them,  —  nay,  the 
old  gospel  of  pessimism  which  seeks  to  se- 
crete a  selfish  happiness  in  "  the  worst  of 
all  possible  worlds."  Nebuchadnezzar  tried 
it  in  Babylon;  Hadrian  tried  it  in  Koine; 
Solomon  tried  it  in  Jerusalem  ;  and  from  all 
its  palaces  comes  the  same  voice :  vanitaa 
vanitatum  at  omnia  vanitas. 

It  is  not  until  the  soul  has  learned  a  better 
wisdom,  learned  that  the  human  race  is  one, 
and  that  none  can  really  rise  by  treading  on  \ 
his  brother-men,  learned  that  true  art  is  not  | 
the  slave  of  luxury  but  the  servant  of  hu- 
manity, learned  that  happiness  is  born,  not 
of  the  lust  to  possess  and  enjoy,  but  of  the 
desire  to  give  and  to  bless,  —  then,  and 
not  until  then,  when  she  brings  others  with 
her,  can  the  soul  find  true  rest  in  her  Palace. 

Tennyson  has  learned,  as  well  as  taught, 
this  consecration  of  art.  He  has  always 
been  an  artist,  but  not  for  art's  sake ;  a 
lover  of  beauty,  but  also  a  lover  of  humanity  ;-4- 
a  singer  whose  musie  has  brightened  and 
blessed   thousands    of   homes    wherever  the 


46  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYBON. 

English  tongue  is  spoken,  and  led  the  feet 
of  young  men  and  maidens,  by  some  Or- 
phean enchantment,  into  royal  mansions  and 
gardens,  full  of  all  things  pure  and  lovely 
and  of  good  report. 


MILTON   AND   TENNYSON: 

A  COMPARISON  AND  A  CONTRAST. 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON. 

Comparison  has  long  been  recognized  as 
one  of  the  fruitful  methods  of  criticism. 
But  in  using  this  method  one  needs  to  re- 
member  that  it  is  the  least  obvious  compar- 
ison which  is  often  the  truest  and  the  most 
suggestive.  The  relationship  of  poets  does 
not  lie  upon  the  surface ;  they  receive  their 
spiritual  inheritance  from  beyond  the  lines 
of  direct  descent.  Thus  a  poet  may  be 
most  closely  connected  with  one  whose  name 
we  never  join  with  his,  and  we  may  find  his 
deepest  resemblance  to  a  man  not  only  of 
another  age,  but  of  another  school. 

Tennyson  has  been  compared  most  fre- 
quently with  Keats  ;  sometimes,  but  falsely, 
with  Shelley ;  and  sometimes,  more  wisely, 
with  Wordsworth.  Our  accomplished  Amer- 
ican critic,  Mr.  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman, 
who  touches  nothing  that  he  does  not  adorn, 
has  a  chapter  in  his  Victorian  Poets  on 
Tennyson  and  Theocritus.  But  the  best  com- 
parison,—  one  which  runs  far  below  the  out- 


50  THE  POETRY  O'F   TENNYSON. 

ward  appearance  into  the  profound  affini- 
ties of  genius  —  yet  remains  to  be  carefully 
traced.  Among  all  poets,  —  certainly  among 
all  English  poets,  —  it  seems  to  me  that 
Tennyson's  next  of  kin  is  Milton. 

By  this  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  they 
are  equally  great  or  exactly  alike.  For  so 
far  as  perfect  likeness  is  concerned,  there  is 
no  such  thiug  among  the  sons  of  men. 
Every  just  comparison  involves  a  contrast. 
And  when  we  speak  of  greatness,  Milton's 
place  as  the  second  poet  of  England  is  not 
now  to  be  called  in  question  by  any  rival 
claim.  Yet  even  here,  when  we  ask  who  is 
to  take  the  third  place,  I  think  there  is  no 
one  who  has  such  a  large  and  substantial 
title  as  the  author  of  In  Memoriam  and 
The  Idylls  of  the  King.  The  conjunction 
of  the  names  of  Milton  and  Tennyson  will 
be  no  unfamiliar  event  for  the  future ;  and 
for  the  present  there  is  no  better  way  of 
studying  these  two  great  poets  than  to  lay 
their  works  side  by  side,  and  trace  their 
lives  through  the  hidden  parallel  of  a  kin- 
dred destiny. 

I. 

There  are  two  direct  references  to  Milton 
in  the  works  of  Tennyson  ;  and   these   we 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  51 

must  examine  first  of  all,  in  order  that  we 
may  understand  the  attitude  of  his  mind  to- 
wards the  elder  master.  The  first  is  in  The 
Palace  of  Art.  The  royal  dais  on  which 
the  soul  set  up  her  intellectual  throne  is 
described  as  having  above  it  four  portraits  of 
wise  men. 

There  deephaired  Milton  like  an  angel  tall 
Stood  limned,  Shakespeare  bland  and  mild, 

Grim  Dante  pressed  his  lips,  and  from  the  wall 
The  bald  blind  Homer  smiled. 

Thus  ran  the  verse  in  the  1833  edition  ; 
and  it  tells  us  the  rank  which  Tennyson,  in 
his  twenty-fourth  year,  assigned  to  Milton. 
But  there  is  hardly  an  instance  in  which  the 
fineness  of  Tennyson's  self  -  correction  is 
more  happily  illustrated  than  in  the  change 
which  he  has  made  in  this  passage.  In  the 
later  editions  it  reads  as  follows  :  — 

For  there  was  Milton  like  a  seraph  strong, 
Beside  him,  Shakespeare  bland  and  mild  ; 

And  there  the  world-worn  Dante  grasped  his  song 
And  somewhat  grimly  smiled. 

And  there  the  Ionian  father  of  the  rest ; 

A  million  wrinkles  carved  his  skin ; 
A  hundred  winters  snowed  upon  his  breast, 

From  cheek  and  throat  and  chin. 

Let  those  who  think  that  poetic  expression 


52  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

is  a  matter  of  chance  ponder  upon  this  pas- 
sage. Every  alteration  is  an  improvement ; 
and  most  of  all  the  change  in  the  first  line. 
For  now  the  poet  has  formed  a  true  picture  of 
Milton's  genius,  and  shows  a  profound  com- 
prehension of  its  essential  quality.  Its  sign 
is  strength,  but  strength  seraphic;  not  the 
rude,  volcanic  force  of  the  Titan,  but  a  power 
serene,  harmonious,  beautiful ;  a  power  of 
sustained  flight,  of  far-reaching  vision,  of 
lofty  eloquence,  such  as  belongs  to  the  sera- 
phim alone.  Mark  you,  the  word  is  not 
"  angel,"  for  the  angels  are  lower  beings,  fol- 
lowers in  the  heavenly  host,  some  weak,  and 
some  fallen ;  nor  is  the  word  "  cherub,"  for 
the  cherubim,  in  the  ancient  Hebrew  doc- 
trine, are  silent  and  mysterious  creatures,  not 
shaped  like  men,  voiceless  and  inapproach- 
able ;  but  the  word  is  "seraph,"  for  the  ser- 
aphim hover  on  mighty  wings  about  the 
throne  of  God,  chanting  His  praise  one  to 
another,  and  bearing  His  messages  from 
heaven  to  earth.  This,  then,  is  the  figure 
which  Tennyson  chooses,  with  the  precision 
of  a  great  poet,  to  summon  the  spirit  of  Mil- 
ton before  us,  —  a  seraph  strong.  That  one 
phrase  is  worth  more  than  all  of  Dr.  John- 
eon's  ponderous  criticisms. 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  53 

The  second  reference  is  found  among 
the  Experiments  in  Quantity  which  were 
printed  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  in  1863. 

We  have  here  the  expression  of  Tenny- 
son's mature  opinion,  carefully  considered, 
and  uttered  with  the  strength  of  a  generous 
and  clear  conviction;  an  utterance  well 
worth  weighing,  not  only  for  the  perfection 
of  its  form,  but  also  for  the  richness  of  its 
contents  and  the  revelation  which  it  makes 
of  the  poet's  own  nature.  Hear  with  what 
power  and  stateliness  the  tone-picture  begins, 
rising  at  once  to  the  height  of  the  noble 
theme ;  — 

O,  mighty-mouth' d  inventor  of  harmonies, 
O,  skill' d  to  sing  of  Time  or  Eternity, 

God-gifted  organ-voice  of  England, 

Milton,  a  name  to  resound  for  ages ; 
Whose  Titan  angels,  Gabriel,  Abdiel, 
Starr' d  from  Jehovah's  gorgeous  armouries, 

Tower,  as  the  deep-domed  empyrean 

Rings  to  the  roar  of  an  angel  onset,  — 
Me  rather  all  that  bowery  loneliness 
The  brooks  of  Eden  mazily  murmuring 

And  bloom  profuse  and  cedar  arches 

Charm,  as  a  wanderer  out  in  ocean, 
Where  some  refulgent  sunset  of  India 
Streams  o'er  a  rich  ambrosial  ocean  isle, 

And  crimson-hued  the  stately  palm-woods 

Whisper  in  odorous  heights  of  even. 

Thus  the  brief  ode  finds  its  perfect  close, 


54  TEE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

the  rich,  full  tones  dying  away  in  the  pro- 
longed period,  as  the  strains  of  some  large 
music  are  lost  in  the  hush  of  twilight.  But 
one  other  hand  could  have  swept  these  grand 
chords  and  evoked  these  tones  of  majestic 
sweetness,  —  the  hand  of  Milton  himself. 

It  was  De  Quincey,  that  most  nearly  in- 
spired, but  most  nearly  insane,  of  critics,  who 
first  spoke  of  the  Miltonic  movement  as 
having  the  qualities  of  an  organ  voluntary. 
But  the  comparison  which  with  him  was  little 
more  than  a  fortunate  and  striking  simile  is 
transformed  by  the  poet  into  a  perfect 
metaphor. 

The  great  organ,  pouring  forth  its  melo- 
dious thunders,  becomes  a  living  thing, 
divinely  dowered  and  filled  with  music, — 
an  instrument  no  longer,  but  a  voice,  majes- 
tic, potent,  thrilling  the  heart,  —  the  voice  of 
England  pealing  in  the  ears  of  all  the  world 
and  all  time.  Swept  on  the  flood  of  those 
great  harmonies,  the  mighty  hosts  of  angels 
clash  together  in  heaven-shaking  conflict. 
But  it  is  the  same  full  tide  of  music  which 
flows  down  in  sweetest,  lingering  cadence 
to  wander  through  the  cool  groves  and  fra- 
grant valleys  of  Paradise.  Here  the  younger 
poet  will  more  gladly  dwell,  finding  a  deeper 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  55 

delight  in  these  solemn  and  tranquil  melodies 
than  in  the  roar  and  clang  of  battles,  even 
though  angelic. 

Is  it  not  true  ?  True,  not  only  that  the 
organ  voice  has  the  twofold  gift  of  beauty 
and  grandeur  ;  true,  not  only  that  Tenny- 
son has  more  sympathy  with  the  loveliness 
of  Eden  than  with  the  mingled  splendours 
and  horrors  of  the  celestial  battlefields  ;  but 
true,  also,  that  there  is  a  more  potent  and 
lasting  charm  in  Milton's  description  of  the 
beautiful  than  in  his  description  of  the  sub- 
lime. I  do  not  think  that  Is' Allegro,  11 
Penseroso,  and  Comus  have  any  lower  place 
in  the  world,  or  any  less  enduring  life,  than 
Paradise  Lost.  And  even  in  that  great 
epic  there  are  no  passages  more  worthy  to  be 
remembered,  more  fruitful  of  pure  feelings 
and  lofty  thoughts,  than  those  like  the  Hymn 
of  Adam,  or  the  description  of  the  first  even- 
ing in  Eden,  which  show  us  the  fairness  and 
delightfulness  of  God's  world.  We  have 
forgotten  this  ;  we  have  thought  so  much  of 
Milton's  strength  and  sublimity  that  we 
have  ceased  to  recognize  what  is  also  true, 
that  he,  of  all  English  poets,  is  by  nature 
the  supreme  lover  of  beauty. 


56  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

II. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  point  of  vital  sym- 
pathy between  Tennyson  and  Milton :  their 
common  love  of  the  beautiful,  not  only  in 
nature,  but  also  in  art.  And  this  we  see 
most  clearly  in  the  youth  and  in  the  youth- 
ful writings  of  the  two  poets. 

There  is  a  close  resemblance  in  their  early 
life.  Both  were  born  and  reared  in  homes 
of  modest  comfort  and  refined  leisure,  under 
the  blended  influences  of  culture  and  reli- 
gion. Milton's  father  was  a  scrivener ;  de- 
prived of  his  heritage  because  he  obeyed  his 
conscience  to  become  a  Protestant,  but 
amassing  a  competence  by  his  professional 
labor,  he  ordered  his  house  well,  softening 
and  beautifying  the  solemnity  of  Puritan 
ways  with  the  pursuit  of  music  and  litera- 
ture. Tsnnyson  was  born  in  a  country  rec- 
tory, one  of  those  fair  homes  of  peace  and 
settled  order  which  are  the  pride  and  strength 
of  England,  —  homes  where  "  plain  living 
and  high  thinking "  produce  the  noblest 
types  of  manhood.  His  father  also,  like 
Milton's,  was  a  musician,  and  surrounded 
his  seven  sons  with  influences  which  gave 
them   poetic    tastes    and    impulses.      It   is 


MILTON  AND    TENNYSON.  57 

strange  to  see  how  large  a  part  music  has 
played  in  the  development  of  these  two 
poets.  Milton,  even  in  his  poverty,  would 
have  an  organ  in  his  house  to  solace  his  dark 
hours.  Tennyson,  it  is  said,  often  called  one 
of  his  sisters  to  play  to  him  while  he  com- 
posed ;  and  in  his  dedication  of  the  Songs 
of  the  Wrens  to  Sir  Ivor  Guest,  he  speaks 
of  himself  as  "  wedded  to  music." 

It  is  of  course  no  more  than  a  coiucidence 
that  both  of  the  young  poets  should  have 
been  students  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge. But  there  is  something  deeper  in 
the  similarity  of  their  college  lives  and  stud- 
ies. A  certain  loftiness  of  spirit,  an  habitual 
abstraction  of  thought,  separated  them  from 
the  mass  of  their  fellow-students.  They  were 
absorbed  in  communion  with  the  great  minds 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  They  drank  deep  at 
the  springs  of  ancient  poesy.  Not  alone  the 
form,  but  the  spirit,  of  the  classics  became 
familiar  to  them.  They  were  enamoured  of 
the  beauty  of  the  old-world  legends,  the 
bright  mythologies  of  Hellas,  and  Latium's 
wondrous  histories  of  gods  and  men.  For 
neither  of  them  was  this  love  of  the  ancient 
poets  a  transient  delight,  a  passing  mood. 
It  took  strong  hold  upon  them  ;  it  became 


68  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNY80N. 

a  moulding  power  in  their  life  and  work. 
We  can  trace  it  in  all  their  writings.  Allu- 
sions, themes,  illustrations,  similes,  forms 
of  verse,  echoes  of  thought,  conscious  or 
unconscious  imitations,  —  a  thousand  tokens 
remind  us  that  we  are  still  beneath  the  in- 
fluence of  the  old  masters  of  a  vanished 
world,  — 

"  The  dead,  but  sceptered  sovereigns,  who  still  rule 
Our  spirits  from  their  urns." 

And  here,  again,  we  see  a  deep  bond  of 
sympathy  between  Tennyson  and  Milton: 
they  are  certainly  the  most  learned,  the  most 
classical,  of  England's  poets. 

Following  their  lives  beyond  the  univer- 
sity, we  find  that  both  of  them  came  out  into 
a  period  of  study,  of  seclusion,  of  leisure,  of 
poetical  productiveness.  Milton  retired  to 
his  father's  house  at  Horton,  in  Bucking- 
hamshire, where  he  lived  for  five  years. 
Tennyson's  home  at  Somersby,  in  Lincoln- 
shire, was  broken  up  by  his  father's  death  in 
1831  ;  and  after  that,  as  Carlyle  wrote  to 
Emerson,  "  he  preferred  clubbing  with  his 
Mother  and  some  Sisters,  to  live  unpro- 
moted  and  write  Poems  ;  .  .  now  here,  now 
there ;  the  family  always  within  reach  of 
London,  never  in  it ;  he  himself  making  rare 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  59 

and  brief  visits,  lodging  in  some  old  com- 
rade's rooms."  The  position  and  circum- 
stances of  the  two  young  poets  were  wonder- 
fully alike.  Both  were  withdrawn  from  the 
whirl  and  conflict  of  active  life  into  a  world 
of  lovely  forms,  sweet  sounds,  and  enchant- 
ing dreams ;  both  fed  their  minds  with  the 
beauty  of  nature  and  of  ancient  story, 
charmed  by  the  music  of  divine  philosophy, 
and  by  songs  of  birds  filling  the  sweet  Eng- 
lish air  at  dawn  or  twilight ;  both  loved  to 
roam  at  will  over  hill  and  dale  and  by  the 
wandering  sti'eams ;  to  watch  the  bee,  with 
honeyed  thigh,  singing  from  flower  to  flower, 
and  catch  the  scent  of  violets  hidden  in  the 
green  ;  to  hear  the  sound  of  far-off  bells 
swinging  over  the  wide-watered  shore,  and 
listen  to  the  sighing  of  the  wind  among  the 
trees,  or  the  murmur  of  the  waves  on  the 
river-bank ;  to  pore  and  dream  through  long 
night-watches  over  the  legends  of  the  past, 
until  the  cold  winds  woke  the  gray-eyed 
morn,  and  the  lark's  song  startled  the  dull 
night  from  her  watch-tower  in  the  skies. 
They  dwelt  as  idlers  in  the  land,  but  it  was 
a  glorious  and  fruitful  idleness,  for  they 
were  reaping 

The  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye 

That  broods  and  sleeps  on  his  own  heart 


60  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

How  few  and  brief,  and  yet  how  wonder- 
ful, how  precious,  are  the  results  of  these 
peaceful  years.  & Allegro,  11  Penseroso, 
Arcades,  Corm/s,  Lycidas ;  Isabel,  Recol- 
lections of  the  Arabian  Nights,  Ode  to 
Memory,  The  Dying  Swan,  The  Palace  of 
Art,  A  Dream  of  Fair  Women,  Mariana, 
The  Lady  of  Shalott,  The  Lotos-Eaters, 
(Enone,  —  these  are  poems  to  be  remem- 
bered, read,  and  re-read  with  ever  fresh  de- 
light, the  most  perfect  things  of  their  kind 
in  all  literature.  Grander  poems,  more  pas- 
sionate, more  powerful,  are  many  ;  but  there 
are  none  in  which  the  pure  love  of  beauty, 
Greek  in  its  healthy  symmetry,  Christian  in 
its  reverent  earnestness,  has  produced  work 
so  complete  and  exquisite  as  the  early  poems 
of  Milton  and  Tennyson. 

Their  best  qualities  are  the  same.  I  am 
more  impressed  with  this  the  more  I  read 
them.  They  are  marked  by  the  same  exact 
observation  of  Nature,  the  same  sensitive 
perception  of  her  most  speaking  aspects,  the 
same  charm  of  simple  and  musical  descrip- 
tion. Read  the  Ode  to  Memory,  —  for  in- 
stance, the  description  of  the  poet's  home :  — 

Come  from  the  woods  that  helt  the  gTay  hillside, 
The  seven  elms,  the  poplars  four 
That  stand  beside  my  father's  door; 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  61 

And  chiefly  from  the  brook  that  loves 
To  pari  o'er  matted  cress  and  ribbed  sand 
Or  dimple  in  the  dark  of  rushy  coves, 
Drawing  into  his  narrow  earthen  nrn, 

In  every  elbow  and  turn, 
The  filtered  tribute  of  the  rough  woodland. 

0 !  hither  lead  my  feet ! 
Pour  round  my  ears  the  livelong  bleat 
Of  the  thick-fleeced  sheep  from  wattled  folds 

Upon  the  ridged  wolds, 
When  the  first  matin-song  hath  waken'd  loud, 
Over  the  dark  dewy  earth  forlorn, 
What  time  the  amber  morn 
Forth  gushes  from  beneath  a  low-hung  cloud. 

Compare  with  this  some  lines  from  JjAII& 
gro :  — 

To  hear  the  lark  begin  his  flight, 
And  singing  startle  the  dull  night 
From  his  watch-tower  in  the  skies, 
Till  the  dappled  dawn  doth  rise ! 


Some  time  walking,  not  unseen, 

By  hedge-row  elms,  on  hillocks  green, 

Right  against  the  eastern  gate 

Where  the  great  sun  begins  his  state, 

Rob'd  in  flames  and  amber  light, 

The  clouds  in  thousand  liveries  dight; 

While  the  ploughman,  near  at  hand, 

Whistles  o'er  the  furrow' d  land, 

And  the  milkmaid  singeth  blithe, 

And  the  mower  whets  his  scythe, 

And  every  shepherd  tells  his  tale 

Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale. 

Straight  mine  eye  hath  caught  new  pleasures 

While  the  landscape  round  it  measures ; 


62  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Russet  lawns  and  fallows  gray, 
Where  the  nibbling  flocks  do  stray ; 
Mountains  on  whose  barren  breast 
The  labouring  clouds  do  often  rest ; 
Meadows  trim  with  daisies  pied, 
Shallow  brooks  and  rivers  wide. 

Here  are  the  same  breadth  of  vision,  deli- 
cacy of  touch,  atmospheric  effect ;  the  same 
sensitiveness  to  the  simplest  variations  of 
light  and  sound ;  the  same  power  to  shed 
over  the  quiet  scenery  of  the  English  coun- 
try the  light  of  an  ideal  beauty.  It  is  an 
art  far  beyond  that  of  the  landscape  painter,- 
and  all  the  more  perfect  because  so  well  con- 
cealed. 

Another  example  will  show  us  the  simi- 
larity of  the  two  poets  in  their  more  purely 
imaginative  work,  the  description  of  that 
which  they  have  seen  only  with  the  dream- 
ing eyes  of  fancy.  Take  the  closing  song, 
or  epilogue  of  the  Attendant  Spirit,  in  Co- 
mus :  — 

To  the  ocean  now  I  fly 

And  those  happy  climes  that  lie 

Up  in  the  broad  fields  of  the  sky. 

There  I  suck  the  liquid  air, 

All  amidst  the  gardens  fair 

Of  Hesperus,  and  his  daughters  three, 

That  sing  about  the  golden  tree  : 

Along  the  crisped  shades  and  bowers 

Revels  the  spruce  and  jocuud  Spring ; 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  63 

The  graces  and  the  rosy-bosomed  Hours 
Thither  all  their  bounties  bring  ; 
There  eternal  summer  dwells, 
And  west-winds,  with  musky  wing, 
About  the  cedarn  alleys  fling 
Nard  and  cassia's  balmy  smells. 
Iris  there  with  humid  bow 
Waters  the  odourous  banks,  that  blow 
Flowers  of  more  mingled  hue 
Than  her  purfled  scarf  can  shew, 
And  drenches  with  Elysian  dew 
Beds  of  hyacinths  and  roses. 

Compare  this  with  Tennyson's  Recollections 
of  the  Arabian  Nights :  — 

Thence  thro'  the  garden  I  was  drawn  — 
A  realm  of  pleasance,  many  a  mound, 
And  many  a  shadow-chequer' d  lawn 
Full  of  the  city's  stilly  sound, 
And  deep  myrrh-thickets  blowing  round 
The  stately  cedar,  tamarisks, 
Thick  rosaries  of  scented  thorn, 
Tall  orient  shrubs,  and  obelisks 

Graven  with  emblems  of  the  time, 

In  honour  of  the  golden  prime 
Of  good  Haroun  Alraschid. 

With  dazed  vision  unawares 
From  the  long  alley's  latticed  shade 
Emerged,  I  came  upon  the  great 
Pavilion  of  the  Caliphat. 
Right  to  the  carven  cedarn  doors 
Flung  inward  over  spangled  floors, 
Broad-based  flights  of  marble  stairs 
Ran  up  with  golden  balustrade. 


64  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYBON. 

After  the  fashion  of  the  time, 
And  humour  of  the  golden  prime 
Of  good  Haroun  Alraschid. 

Here  is  more  than  a  mere  resemblance  of 
words  and  themes,  more  than  an  admiring 
imitation  or  echoing  of  phrases ;  it  is  an 
identity  of  taste,  spirit,  temperament.  But 
the  resemblance  of  forms  is  also  here.  We 
can  trace  it  even  in  such  a  minor  trait  as  the 
skilful  construction  and  use  of  double-words. 
This  has  often  been  noticed  as  a  distinguish- 
ing feature  of  Tennyson's  poetry.  But  Mil- 
ton uses  them  almost  as  freely  and  quite 
as  magically.  In  Comus,  which  has  a  few 
more  than  a  thousand  lines,  there  are  fifty- 
four  double-epithets ;  in  L' Allegro  there  are 
sixteen  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  lines ;  in  U 
Penseroso  there  are  eleven  to  one  hundred 
and  seventy  lines.  Tennyson's  Ode  to  Mem- 
ory, with  a  hundred  and  twenty  lines,  has 
fifteen  double-words  ;  Mariana,  with  eighty 
lines,  has  nine  ;  the  Lotos-Eaters,  with  two 
hundred  lines,  has  thirty-two.  And  if  I 
should  choose  at  random  fifty  such  words 
from  the  early  poems,  I  do  not  think  that 
any  one,  not  knowing  them  by  heart,  could 
tell  at  first  glance  which  were  Milton's  and 
which  Tennyson's.  Let  us  try  the  experi- 
ment with  the  following  list :  — 


/ 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  65 

Low-thoughted,  empty-vaulted,  rosy-white,  rosy-bo- 
somed, violet-embroidered,  dew-impearled,  over-exquisite, 
long-levelled,  mild-eyed,  white-banded,  white-breasted, 
pure-eyed,  sin-worn,  self-consumed,  self-profit,  close- 
curtained,  low-browed,  ivy-crowned,  gray-eyed,  far- 
beaming,  pale -eyed,  down  -  steering,  flower -inwoven, 
dewy-dark,  moon-loved,  smooth-swarded,  quick-falling, 
slow-dropping,  coral-paven,  lily-cradled,  amber-dropping, 
thrice-great,  dewy-feathered,  purple-spiked,  foam-foun- 
tains, sand-built,  night-steeds,  h  U-flowing,  sable-stoled, 
sun-steeped,  star-led,  pilot-stars,  full-juiced,  dew-fed, 
brazen-headed,  wisdom-bred,  star-strown,  low-embowed, 
iron-worded,  globe-filled. 

It  will  puzzle  the  reader  to  distinguish 
with  any  degree  of  certainty  the  authorship 
of  these  words.  And  this  seems  the  more 
remarkable  when  we  remember  that  there 
are  two  centuries  of  linguistic  development 
and  changing  fashions  of  poetic  speech  be- 
tween Comus  and  (Enone. 

Not  less  remarkable  is  the  identity  of 
spirit  in  Tennyson  and  Milton  in  their  deli- 
cate yet  wholesome  sympathy  with  Nature, 
their  perception  of  the  relation  of  her  moods 
and  aspects  to  the  human  heart.  This,  in 
fact,  is  the  keynote  of  JW Allegro  and  H 
Penseroso.  The  same  world,  seen  under 
different  lights  and  filled  with  different 
sounds,  responds  as  deeply  to  the  joyous,  as 
to  the  melancholy,  spirit.     There  is  a  pro- 


66  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

found  meaning,  a  potent  influence,  in  the 
outward  shows  of  sky  and  earth.  While 
the  Lady  of  Shalott  dwells  in  her  pure  se- 
clusion, the  sun  shines,  the  lily  blossoms  on 
the  river's  breast,  and  the  blue  sky  is  un- 
clouded ;  but  wheu  she  passes  the  fatal  line, 
and  the  curse  has  fallen  on  her,  then 

In  the  stormy  eastwind  straining, 
The  pale  yellow  woods  are  waning, 
The  broad  stream  in  his  banks  complaining, 
Heavily  the  low  sky  raining, 
Over  tower' d  Camelot 

Thus,  also,  when  the  guilty  pair  in  Eden 
had  transgressed  that  sole  command  on  which 
their  happiness  depended,  — 

Sky  lowered,  and  muttering  thunder,  some  sad  drops 
Wept  at  completing  of  the  mortal  sin. 

Mr.  Ruskin  says  that  this  is  "  the  pathetic 
fallacy  ;  "  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  clouds 
do  not  weep,  nor  do  the  rivers  complain, 
and  he  maintains  that  to  speak  of  them  as 
if  they  did  these  things  is  to  speak  with  a 
certain  degree  of  falsehood  which  is  un- 
worthy of  the  highest  kind  of  art.  But  Mr. 
Ruskin  may  say  what  he  pleases  about  Mil- 
ton and  Tennyson  without  much  likelihood 
of  persuading  any  sane  person  that  their 
poetry  is  not  profoundly  true  to  Nature,  — 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  67 

and  most  true  precisely  in  its  recognition  of 
her  power  to  echo  and  reflect  the  feelings  of 
man.  All  her  realities  are  but  seemings  ; 
and  she  does  seem  to  weep  with  them  that 
weep,  and  to  rejoice  with  them  that  do  re- 
joice. Nothing  cau  be  more  real  than  that. 
The  chemistry  of  the  sun  is  no  more  true 
than  its  message  of  joy  ;  the  specific  gravity 
of  the  rain  is  of  no  greater  consequence  than 
its  message  of  sadness.  And  for  the  poet 
the  first  necessity  is  that  he  should  be  able 
to  feel  and  interpret  the  sentiment  of  nat- 
ural objects.  The  art  of  landscape-poetry, 
I  take  it,  consists  in  this  :  the  choice  and 
description  of  such  actual  images  of  external 
nature  as  are  capable  of  being  grouped  and 
coloured  by  a  dominant  idea  or  feeling.  Of 
this  art  the  most  perfect  masters  are  Tenny- 
son and  Milton.  And  here  I  have  reversed 
the  order  of  the  names,  because  I  reckon 
that  on  this  point  Tennyson  stands  first. 
Take,  for  example,  the  little  poem  on  Mari- 
ana,  —  that  wonderful  variation  on  the 
theme  of  loneliness  suggested  by  a  single 
line  in  Measure  for  Measure.  Here  the 
thought  is  the  weariness  of  waiting  for  one 
who  does  not  come.  The  garden  has  grown 
black  with  moss,  the  nails  in  the  wall  are 


68  THE  POETRf  OF  TENNYSON. 

rusted,  the  thatch  is  full  of  weeds  on  the 
forsaken  house ;  the  moat  is  crusted  over 
with  creeping  marsh  -  plants,  the  solitary- 
poplar  on  the  fen  trembles  eternally  in  the 
wind  ;  slowly  pass  the  night-hours,  marked 
by  the  distant  sounds  of  crowing  cocks  and 
lowing  oxen  ;  slower  still  the  hours  of  day, 
while  the  fly  buzzes  on  the  window-pane,  the 
mouse  shrieks  in  the  wainscot,  the  sparrow 
chirps  on  the  roof ;  everything  in  the  pic- 
ture belongs  to  a  life  sunken  in  monotony, 
lost  in  monotony,  forgotten  as  a  dead  man 
out  of  mind.  Even  the  light  that  falls  into 
the  moated  grange  is  full  of  dust. 

But  most  she  loathed  the  hour 
When  the  thick-moted  sunbeam  lay 
Athwart  the  chambers,  and  the  day 
Downsloped,  was  westering  in  his  bower. 
Then,  said  she,  "  I  am  very  dreary, 
He  will  not  come,"  she  said ; 

She  wept,  "  I  am  aweary,  aweary, 
Oh  God,  that  I  were  dead.' ' 

Now  all  this  is  perfect  painting  of  the 
things  in  nature  which  respond  exactly  to 
the  sense  of  depression  and  solitude  and  in- 
tolerable, prolonged  neglect,  in  a  human 
soul.  For  an  illustration  of  the  opposite 
feeling  turn  to  the  description  of  the  May 
morning  in  The  Gardener's  Daughter.   The 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  69 

passage  is  too  long  to  quote  here ;  but  it  is 
beyond  doubt  one  of  the  most  rich  and  joy- 
ous pictures  in  English  verse.  The  world 
seems  to  be  overflowing  with  blossom  and 
song  as  the  youth  draws  near  to  the  maiden. 
It  is  love  set  to  landscape.  And  yet  there 
is  not  a  single  false  touch ;  all  is  true  and 
clear  and  precise,  down  to  the  lark's  song 
which  grows  more  rapid  as  he  sinks  to- 
wards his  nest,  and  the  passing  cloud  whose 
moisture  draws  out  the  sweet  smell  of  the 
flowers. 

Another  trait  common  to  the  earlier 
poems  of  Milton  and  Tennyson  is  their 
purity  of  tone.  They  are  sensrous,  —  indeed 
Milton  declared  that  all  good  poetry  must 
be  sensuous,  —  but  never  for  a  moment,  in  a 
single  line,  are  they  sensual 

Look  at  the  Lady  in  Comus.  She  is  the 
sweet  embodiment  of  Milton's  youthful  ideal 
of  virtue,  clothed  with  the  fairness  of  open- 
ing womanhood,  armed  with  the  sun-clad 
power  of  chastity.  Darkness  and  danger 
cannot 

Stir  the  constant  mood  of  her  calm  thoughts. 

Evil  things  have  no  power  upon  her,  but 
shrink  abashed  from  her  presence. 


70  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNY80N. 

So  deax  to  heaven  is  saintly  chastity 

That  when  a  soul  is  found  sincerely  so, 

A  thousand  liveried  angels  lackey  her, 

Driving  far  off  each  thing  of  sin  and  guilt ; 

And  in  clear  dream  and  solemn  vision, 

Tell  her  of  things  that  no  gross  ear  can  hear, 

Till  oft  converse  with  heavenly  habitants 

Begin  to  cast  a  beam  on  th'  outward  shape, 

The  unpolluted  temple  of  the  mind, 

And  turns  it  by  degrees  to  the  soul's  essence, 

Till  all  be  made  immortal. 

And  now,  beside  this  loveliest  Lady,  bring 
Isabel,  with  those 

Eyes  not  down-dropt  nor  over-bright,  but  fed 
With  the  clear-pointed  flame  of  chastity, 
Clear,  without  heat,  undying,  tended  by 
Pure  vestal  thoughts  in  the  translucent  fane 
Of  her  still  spirit. 

Bring  also  her  who,  for  her  people's  good, 
passed  naked  on  her  palfrey  through  the 
city  streets,  —  Godiva,  who 

Rode  forth,  clothed  on  with  chastity ; 
The  deep  air  listen'd  round  her  as  she  rode, 
And  all  the  low  wind  hardly  breathed  for  fear. 

These  are  sisters,  perfect  in  purity  as  in 
beauty,  and  worthy  to  be  enshrined  forever 
in  the  love  of  youth.  They  are  ideals  which 
draw  the  heart,  not  downward,  but  upward 
by  the  power  of  "  das  ewig  Weibliche" 

There  are   many  other  points  of  resem- 
blance between  the  early  poems  of  Milton 


MILTON  AND    TENNYSON.  71 

and  Tennyson  on  which  it  would  be  pleasant 
to  dwell.  Echoes  of  thought  like  that  son- 
net, beginning 

Check  every  outflash,  every  ruder  sally 

Of  thought  and  speech  :  speak  low,  and  give  up  wholly 

Thy  spirit  to  mild-minded  melancholy,  — 

which  seems  almost  as  if  it  might  have  been 
written  by  II  Penseroso.  Coincidences  of 
taste  and  reading  such  as  the  fondness  for 
the  poet  to  whom  Milton  alludes  as 

Him  that  left  half  told 
The  story  of  Camhuscan  bold, 
Of  Camball  and  of  Algarsife 
And  who  had  Canace  to  wife,  — 

and  whom  Tennyson  calls 

Dan  Chaucer,  the  first  warbler,  whose  sweet  breath 
Preluded  those  melodious  bursts  that  fill 

The  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth 
With  sounds  that  echo  still. 

Likenesses  of  manner  such  as  the  imitation 
of  the  smooth  elegiac  poets  in  Lyddas  and 
CEnone.  But  a  critic  who  wishes  his  con- 
clusions to  be  accepted  cheerfully  and  with 
a  sense  of  gratitude  must  leave  his  readers 
to  supply  some  illustrations  for  themselves. 
And  this  I  will  be  prudent  enough  to  do  ; 
expressing  only  the  opinion  that  those  who 
study  the  subject  carefully  will  find  that 
there  is  no  closer  parallel  in  literature  than 


72  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

that  between  the  early  poems  of  Milton  and 
Tennyson. 

in. 

There  are  two  causes  which  have  power 
to  change  the  natural  or  premeditated  course 
of  a  man's  life,  —  the  shock  of  a  great  out- 
ward catastrophe,  and  the  shock  of  a  pro- 
found inward  grief.  When  the  former 
comes,  it  shatters  all  his  cherished  plans, 
renders  the  execution  of  his  favorite  pro- 
jects impossible,  directs  the  current  of  his 
energy  into  new  channels,  plunges  him 
into  conflict  with  circumstances,  turns  his 
strength  against  corporeal  foes,  and  produces 
a  change  of.  manner,  speech,  life,  which  is 
at  once  evident  and  tangible.  With  the 
latter,  it  is  different.  The  inward  shock 
brings  with  it  no  alteration  of  the  visible 
environment,  leaves  the  man  where  he  stood 
before,  to  the  outward  eye  unchanged,  free 
to  tread  the  same  paths  and  pursue  the  same 
designs ;  and  yet,  in  truth,  not  free ;  most 
deeply,  though  most  subtly,  changed ;  for 
the  soul,  shaken  from  her  serene  repose,  and 
losing  the  self-confidence  of  youth,  either 
rises  into  a  higher  life  or  sinks  into  a 
lower;  meeting  the  tremendous  questions 
which    haunt    the    shade    of     a    supreme 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  73 

personal  bereavement,  she  finds  an  answer 
either  in  the  eternal  Yes  or  in  the  eternal 
No  ;  and  though  form  and  accent  and  mode 
of  speech  remain  the  same,  the  thoughts  and 
intents  of  the  heart  are  altered  forever. 

To  Milton  came  the  outward  conflict ;  to 
Tennyson,  the  inward  grief.  And  as  we 
follow  them  beyond  the  charmed  circle  of 
their  early  years,  we  must  trace  the  parallel 
between  them,  if  indeed  we  can  find  it  at 
all,  far  below  the  surface;  although  even 
yet  we  shall  see  some  external  resemblances 
amid  many  and  strong  contrasts. 

Milton's  catastrophe  was  the  civil  war, 
sweeping  over  England  like  a  flood.  But 
the  fate  which  involved  him  in  it  was  none 
other  than  his  own  conscience.  This  it  was 
that  drew  him,  by  compulsion  more  strong 
than  sweet,  from  the  florid  literary  hospital- 
ity of  Italian  mutual  laudation  societies  into 
the  vortex  of  tumultuous  London,  made  him 
"  lay  aside  his  singing  robes  "  for  the  heavy 
armour  of  the  controversialist,  and  leave  his 
"calm  and  pleasant  solitariness,  fed  with 
cheerful  and  confident  thoughts,  to  embark 
on  a  troubled  sea  of  noises  and  harsh  dis- 
putes." His  conscience,  I  say,  not  his 
tastes :  all  these  led  him   the   other   way. 


74  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

But  an  irresistible  sense  of  duty  caught  him, 
and  dragged  him,  as  it  were,  by  the  neck  to 
the  verge  of  the  precipice,  and  flung  him 
down  into  the  thick  of  the  hottest  conflict 
that  England  has  ever  seen. 

Once  there,  he  does  not  retreat.  He  quits 
himself  like  a  man.  He  is  not  a  Puritan. 
He  loves  many  things  that  the  mad  Puritans 
hate,  —  art,  music,  fine  literature,  nature, 
beauty.  But  one  thing  he  loves  more  than 
all, —  liberty!  For  that  he  will  fight, — 
fight  on  the  Puritan  side,  fight  against 
anybody,  desperately,  pertinaciously,  with 
grand  unconsciousness  of  possible  defeat.  He 
catches  •  the  lust  of  combat,  and  "  drinks 
delight  of  battle  with  his  peers."  The 
serene  poet  is  transformed  into  a  thunder- 
ing pamphleteer.  He  launches  deadly  bolts 
against  tyranny  in  Church,  in  State,  in  so- 
ciety. He  strikes  at  the  corrupt  clergy,  at 
the  false,  cruel  king,  at  the  self-seeking 
bigots  disguised  as  friends  of  freedom.  He 
is  absorbed  in  strife.  Verse  is  forgotten. 
But  one  brief  strain  of  true  poetry  bursts 
from  him  at  the  touch  of  personal  grief. 
The  rest  is  all  buried,  choked  down,  con- 
cealed. The  full  stream  of  his  energy,  un- 
stinted, undivided,  flows  into  the  struggle 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  75 

for  freedom  and  truth ;  and  even  when  the 
war  is  ended,  the  good  cause  betrayed  by 
secret  enemies  and  foolish  friends,  the  free- 
dom of  England  sold  back  into  the  hands 
of  the  treacherous  Stuarts,  Milton  fights  on, 
like  some  guerilla  captain  in  a  far  mountain 
region,  who  has  not  heard,  or  will  not  be- 
lieve, the  news  of  surrender. 

The  blow  which  fell  on  Tennyson  was 
secret.  The  death  of  Arthur  Henry  Hal. 
lam,  in  1833,  caused  no  great  convulsion  in 
English  politics,  brought  no  visible  disaster 
to  church  or  state,  sent  only  the  lightest 
and  most  transient  ripple  of  sorrow  across 
the  surface  of  society ;  but  to  the  heart  of 
one  man  it  was  the  shock  of  an  inward 
earthquake,  upheaving  the  foundations  of 
life  and  making  the  very  arch  of  heaven 
tremble.  Bound  to  Hallam  by  one  of  those 
rare  friendships  passing  the  love  of  women, 
Tennyson  felt  his  loss  in  the  inmost  fibres 
of  his  being.  The  world  was  changed,  dark- 
ened, filled  with  secret  conflicts.  The  im- 
portunate questions  of  human  life  and  des- 
tiny thronged  upon  his  soul.  The  ideal 
peace,  the  sweet,  art-satisfied  seclusion,  the 
dreams  of  undisturbed  repose,  became  im- 
possible for  him.     He  must  fight,  not  for  a 


76  THE  POETRY   OF   TENNYSON. 

party  cause,  but  for  spiritual  freedom  and 
immortal  hopes,  not  against  incorporate  and 
embattled  enemies,  but  against  unseen  foes, 
—  thrones,  principalities,  and  powers  of 
darkness. 

I  think  we  have  some  record  of  this  strife 
in  poems  like  Two  Voices,  and  The  Vision 
of  Sin.  The  themes  here  treated  are  the 
deepest  and  most  awful  that  can  engage  the 
mind.  The  worth  of  life,  the  significance  of 
suffering,  the  reality  of  virtue,  the  existence 
of  truth,  the  origin  and  end  of  evil,  human 
responsibility,  Divine  goodness,  mysteries  of 
the  now  and  the  hereafter,  —  these  are  the 
problems  with  which  the  poet  is  forced  to 
deal,  and  he  dares  to  deal  with  them  face  to 
face.  I  will  not  say  that  he  finds,  as  yet, 
the  true  solution  ;  there  is  a  more  profound 
and  successful  treatment  of  the  same  prob- 
lems to  follow  in  In  Memoriam.  But  I 
think  that,  so  far  as  they  go,  these  poems  are 
right  and  true;  and  in  them,  enlightened  by 
grief,  strengthened  by  inward  combat,  the 
poet  has  struck  a  loftier  note  than  can  be 
heard  in  the  beautiful  poems  of  his  youth. 

For  this,  mark  you,  is  clear.  The  poet 
has  now  become  a  man.  The  discipline  of 
sorrow  has  availed.     Life  is  real  and  earnest 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  77 

to  him.  He  grapples  with  the  everlasting 
facts  of  humanity.  Men  and  women  are 
closer  to  him.  He  can  write  poems  like 
Dora,  Ulysses,  St  Simeon  Stylites,  as  won- 
derful for  their  difference  in  tone  and  sub- 
ject as  for  their  common  virility  and  abso- 
lute truth  to  nature.  He  has  learned  to  feel 
a  wan  a  sympathy  with 

Men,  my  brothers,  men,  the  workers : 

to  care  for  all  that  touches  their  welfare ;  to 
rejoice  in  the  triumphs  of  true  liberty ;  to 
thunder  in  scorn  and  wrath  against  the  social 
tyrannies  that  crush  the  souls  of  men,  and 

The  social  lies  that  warp  us  from  the  living  truth. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  no  actual  and  visi- 
ble conflict,  no  civil  war  raging  to  engulf 
him.  He  is  not  called  upon  to  choose  be- 
tween his  love  of  poetry  and  his  love  of 
country,  nor  to  lay  aside  his  singing-robes 
even  for  a  time.  It  is  his  fortune,  or  mis- 
fortune, to  have  fallen  upon  an  age  of  peace 
and  prosperity  and  settled  government.  But 
in  that  great  unseen  warfare  which  is  ever 
waging  between  truth  and  error,  right  and 
wrong,  freedom  and  oppression,  light  and 
darkness,  he  bears  his  part  and  bears  it  well, 
by  writing  such  poems   as   Lochsley   Hall, 


78  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Sea  Dreams,  Enoch  Arden,  Aylmer's 
Field ;  and  these  entitle  him  to  high  rank 
as  a  poet  of  humanity. 

Are  they  then  so  far  apart,  Milton  and 
Tennyson,  the  Latin  Secretary  of  Cromwell 
and  the  Poet  Laureate  of  Queen  Victoria,  — 
are  they  so  far  apart  in  the  spiritual  activity 
of  their  lives  as  their  circumstances  seem  to 
place  them  ?  Are  they  as  unlike  in  the  fact, 
as  they  are  in  the  form,  of  their  utterance 
on  the  great  practical  questions  of  life  ?  I 
think  not.  Even  here,  where  the  lines  of 
their  work  seem  to  diverge  most  widely,  we 
may  trace  some  deep  resemblances,  under 
apparent  differences. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  a  most  impor- 
tant place  in  the  thought  and  writing  of  both 
these  men  has  been  occupied  by  the  subject 
of  marriage.  How  many  of  Tennyson's 
poems  are  devoted  to  this  theme !  The  Mill- 
er's Daughter,  The  Lord  of  Burleigh, 
Lady  Clare,  Edwin  Morris,    The  Brook, 

The  Gardener's  Daughter,  Love  and  Duty, 
Locksley  Hall,  The  Princess,  Maud,  Enoch 
Arden,  Aylmer's  Field,  The  Golden  Sup- 
per, The  Window,  The  First  Quarrel,  The 

Wreck,  The  Flight,  and  The  Idylls  of  the 
King,  all  have  the  thought  of  union  between 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  79 

man  and  woman,  and  the  questions  which 
arise  in  connection  with  it,  at  their  root. 

In  The  Coming  of  Arthur,  Tennyson 
makes  his  chosen  hero  rest  all  his  power 
upon  a  happy  and  true  marriage :  — 

What  happiness  to  reign  a  lonely  king 

Vext  with  waste  dreams  ?     For  saving  I  be  join'd 

To  her  that  is  the  fairest  under  heaven, 

I  seem  as  nothing  in  the  mighty  world, 

And  cannot  will  my  will  nor  work  my  work 

Wholly,  nor  make  myself  in  mine  own  realm 

Victor  and  lord.     But  were  I  join'd  with  her, 

Then  might  we  live  together  as  one  life, 

And  reigning  with  one  will  in  everything, 

Have  power  on  this  dark  land  to  lighten  it, 

And  power  on  this  dead  world  to  make  it  live. 

Compare  with  this  Adam's  complaint  in 
Paradise :  — 

In  solitude 
What  happiness  ?     Who  can  enjoy  alone  ? 
Or  all  enjoying  what  contentment  find  ? 

his  demand  for  a  companion  equal  with  him- 
self, "  fit  to  participate  all  rational  delight ;  " 
and  his  description  of  his  first  sight  of  Eve : 

She  disappeared  and  left  me  dark.     I  wak'd 

To  find  her,  or  forever  to  deplore 

Her  loss,  and  other  pleasures  all  abjure. 

Mark  the  fact  that  those  four  tremendous 
pamphlets   on   Divorce  with   which   Milton 


80  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

horrified  his  enemies  and  shocked  his  friends, 
have  underlying  all  their  errors  and  extrava- 
gances the  great  doctrine  that  a  genuine 
marriage  must  be  a  true  companionship  and 
union  of  souls  —  a  doctrine  equally  opposed 
to  the  licentious,  and  to  the  conventional, 
view  of  wedlock.  This  is  precisely  Tenny- 
son's position.  His  bitterest  invectives  are 
hurled  against  marriages  of  convenience  ancl 
avarice.  He  praises  "  that  true  marriage, 
that  healthful  and  holy  family  life,  which 
has  its  roots  in  mutual  affection,  in  mutual 
fitness,  and  which  is  guarded  by  a  constancy 
as  strong  as  heaven's  blue  arch  and  yet  as 
spontaneous  as  the  heart-beats  of  a  happy 
child."  But  in  praising  this,  Tennyson 
speaks  of  what  he  has  possersed  and  known  : 
Milton  could  have  spoken  only  of  what  he 
had  desired  and  missed.  A  world-wide  dif- 
ference, more  than  enough  to  account  for 
anything  of  incompleteness  or  harshness  in 
Milton's  views  of  women. 

What  gross  injustice  the  world  has  done 
him  on  this  point !  Married  at  an  age  when 
a  man  who  has  preserved  the  lofty  ideals  and 
personal  purity  of  youth  is  peculiarly  liable 
to  deception,  to  a  woman  far  below  him  in 
character  and  intellect,  a  pretty  fool  utterly 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  81 

unfitted  to  take  a  sincere  and  earnest  view 
of  life  or  to  sympathize  with  him  in  his 
studies ;  deserted  by  her  a  few  weeks  after 
the  wedding-day;  met  by  stubborn  refusal 
and  unjust  reproaches  in  every  attempt  to 
reclaim  and  reconcile  her ;  accused  by  her 
family  of  disloyalty  in  politics,  and  treated 
as  if  he  were  unworthy  of  honourable  consid- 
eration ;  what  wonder  that  his  heart  experi- 
enced a  great  revulsion,  that  he  began  to 
doubt  the  reality  of  such  womanhood  as  he 
had  described  and  immortalized  in  Comus, 
that  he  sought  relief  in  elaborating  a  doc- 
trine of  divorce  which  should  free  him  from 
the  unworthy  and  irksome  tie  of  a  marriage 
which  was  in  truth  but  an  empty  mockery? 
That  divorce  doctrine  which  he  propounded 
in  the  heat  of  personal  indignation,  dis- 
guised even  from  himself  beneath  a  mask  of 
professedly  calm  philosophy,  was  surely  false, 
and  we  cannot  but  condemn  it.  But  can  we 
condemn  his  actual  conduct,  so  nobly  incon- 
sistent with  his  own  theory  ?  Can  we  con- 
demn the  man,  as  we  see  him  forgiving  and 
welcoming  his  treacherous  wife  driven  by 
stress  of  poverty  and  danger  to  return  to  the 
home  which  she  had  frivolously  forsaken  ; 
welcoming  also,  and  to  the  best  of  his  ability 


82  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

sheltering,  her  whole  family  of  Philistines, 
who  were  glad  enough,  for  all  their  pride,  to 
find  a  refuge  from  the  perils  of  civil  war  in 
the  house  of  the  despised  schoolmaster  and 
Commonwealth-man  ;  bearing  patiently,  for 
his  wife's  sake,  with  their  weary  presence 
and  shallow  talk  in  his  straitened  dwelling- 
place  until  the  death  of  the  father-in-law, 
whose  sense  of  honour  was  never  strong 
enough  to  make  him  pay  one  penny  of  his 
daughter's  promised  marriage-portion,  —  can 
we  condemn  Milton  as  we  see  him  acting 
thus  ?  And  as  we  see  him,  after  a  few  months 
of  happy  union  with  a  second  wife,  again 
left  a  widower  with  three  daughters,  two  of 
whom,  at  least,  never  learned  to  love  him ; 
blind,  poor,  almost  friendless ;  disliked 
and  robbed  by  his  undutiful  children,  who 
did  not  scruple  to  cheat  him  in  the  market- 
ings, sell  his  books  to  the  rag-pickers,  and 
tell  the  servants  that  the  best  news  they 
could  hear  would  be  the  news  of  their  fa- 
ther's death ;  forced  at  length  in  very  in- 
stinct of  self-protection  to  take  as  his  third 
wife  a  plain,  honest  woman  who  would  be 
faithful  and  kind  in  her  care  of  him  and 
his  house ;  can  we  wonder  if,  after  this  ex- 
perience of  life,  he  thought  somewhat  doubt- 
fully of  women  ? 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  83 

But  of  woman,  woman  as  God  made  her 
and  meant  her  to  be,  woman  as  she  is  in  the 
true  purity  and  unspoiled  beauty  of  her  na- 
ture, he  never  thought  otherwise  than  nobly 
and  reverently.  Read  his  sonnet  to  his  sec- 
ond wife,  in  whom  for  one  fleeting  year  his 
heart  tasted  the  best  of  earthly  joys,  the  joy 
of  a  perfect  companionship,  but  who  was  lost 
to  him  in  the  birth  of  her  first  child :  — 

Methought  I  saw  my  late  espoused  saint 
Brought  to  me  like  Alcestis  from  the  grave, 
Whom  Jove's  great  son  to  her  glad  husband  gave, 

Rescued  from  death  by  force  though  pale  and  faint. 

Mine,  as  whom  washed  from  spot  of  child-bed  taint 
Purification  in  the  old  Law  did  save, 
And  such  as  yet  once  more  I  trust  to  have 

Pull  sight  of  her  in  Heaven,  without  restraint, 

Came  vested  all  in  white,  pure  as  her  mind ; 
Her  face  was  veiled,  yet  to  my  fancied  sight 

Love,  sweetness,  goodness  in  her  person  shined 
So  clear  as  in  no  face  with  more  delight. 

But  O,  as  to  embrace  me  she  inclined, 

I  waked,  she  fled,  and  day  brought  back  my  night. 

Surely  there  is  no  more  beautiful  and  heart- 
felt prajse  of  perfect  womanhood  in  all  liter- 
ature than  this ;  and  Tennyson  has  never 
written  with  more  unfeigned  worship  of 
wedded  love. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  Milton  declares  that 
woman  is  inferior  to  man  "  in  the  mind  and 


84  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

inward  faculties,"  but  he  follows  this  decla- 
ration with  the  most  exquisite  description 
of  her  peculiar  excellences : 

When  I  approach 
Her  loveliness,  so  absolute  she  seems 
And  in  herself  complete,  so  well  to  know 
Her  own,  that  what  she  wills  to  do  or  say 
Seems  wisest,  virtuousest,  discreetest,  best : 
Authority  and  reason  on  her  wait 
As  one  intended  first,  not  after  made 
Occasionally ;  and  to  consummate  all, 
Greatness  of  mind  and  nobleness  their  seat 
Build  in  her  loveliest,  and  create  an  awe 
About  her  as  a  guard  angelic  placed. 

It.  is  true  that  he  teaches,  in  accordance 
with  the  explicit  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  that 
it  is  the  wife's  duty  to  obey  her  husband,  to 
lean  upon,  and  follow,  his  larger  strength 
when  it  is  exercised  in  wisdom.  But  he 
never  places  the  woman  below  the  man, 
always  at  his  side ;  the  divinely  -  dowered 
consort  and  counterpart,  not  the  same,  but 
equal,  supplying  his  deficiencies  and  solac- 
ing his  defects, 

TTi«  likeness,  his  fit  help,  his  other  self, 

with  whom  he  may  enjoy 

Union  of  mind  or  in  us  both  one  souL 

And  love  like  this 

Leads  up  to  heaven ;  is  both  the  way  and  guide. 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  85 

Compare  these  teachings  with  those  of 
Tennyson  in  The  Princess,  where  under  a 
veil  of  irony,  jest  mixed  with  earnest,  he 
shows  the  pernicious  folly  of  the  modern 
attempt  to  change  woman  into  a  man  in 
petticoats,  exhibits  the  female  lecturer  and 
the  sweet  girl  graduates  in  their  most  de- 
lightfully absurd  aspect,  overthrows  the  vis- 
ionary towers  of  the  Female  College  with  a 
baby's  touch,  and  closes  the  most  good-hu- 
moured of  satires  with  a  picture  of  the  true 
relationship  of  man  and  woman,  so  beautiful 
and  so  wise  that  neither  poetry  nor  philoso- 
phy can  add  a  word  to  it. 

For  woman  is  not  undevelopt  man, 

But  diverse  :  could  we  make  her  as  the  man, 

Sweet  Love  were  slain  ;  his  dearest  bond  is  this, 

Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference. 

Yet  in  the  long  years  liker  mast  they  grow ; 

The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man ; 

He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world  ; 

She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care, 

Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind ; 

Till  at  the  last  she  set  herself  to  man 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words. 


Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men : 
Then  reign  the  world's  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm : 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  humankind. 
May  these  things  be ! 


86  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

A  second  point  in  which  we  may  trace  a 
deep  resemblance  between  Milton  and  Ten- 
nyson is  their  intense  love  of  country. 
This  is  not  always  a  prominent  characteris- 
tic of  great  poets.  Indeed,  we  may  ques- 
tion whether  there  is  not  usually  something 
in  the  poetic  temperament  which  unfits  a 
man  for  actual  patriotism,  makes  him  an 
inhabitant  of  an  ideal  realm  rather  than  a 
citizen  of  a  particular  country ;  inclines  him 
to  be  governed  by  disgusts  more  than  he  is 
inspired  by  enthusiasms,  and  to  withdraw 
himself  from  a  practical  interest  in  the 
national  welfare  into  the  vague  dreams  of 
Utopian  perfection.  In  Goethe  we  see  the 
cold  indifference  of  the  self-centred  artistic 
mind,  careless  of  his  country's  degradation 
and  enslavement,  provided  only  the  ali-con- 
quering  Napoleon  will  leave  him  his  poetic 
leisure  and  freedom.  In  Byron  we  see  the 
wild  rebelliousness  of  the  poet  of  passion, 
deserting,  disowning,  and  reviling  his  native 
land  in  the  sullen  fury  of  personal  anger. 
But  Milton  and  Tennyson  are  true  patriots 
—  Englishmen  to  the  heart's  core.  They  do 
not  say,  "  My  country,  right  or  wrong !  " 
They  protest  in  noble  scorn  against  all 
kinds  of  tyrannies  and  hypocrisies.     They 


MILTON  AND    TENNYSON.  87 

are  not  bound  in  conscienceless  servility 
to  any  mere  political  party.  They  are 
the  partisans  of  England,  and  England  to 
them  means  freedom,  justice,  righteous- 
ness, Christianity.  Milton  sees  her  "  rous 
ing  herself  like  a  strong  man  after  sleep, 
and  shaking  her  invincible  locks  ;  "  or  "  as 
an  eagle,  mewing  her  mighty  youth,  and 
kindling  her  undazzled  eyes  at  the  full  mid- 
day beam  ;  purging  and  scaling  her  long- 
abused  sight  at  the  fountain  itself  of  heav- 
enly radiance ;  while  the  whole  noise  of 
timorous  and  flocking  birds,  with  those  also 
that  love  the  twilight,  flutter  about  amazed 
at  what  she  means,  and  in  their  envious 
gabble  would  prognosticate  a  year  of  sects 
and  schisms."    Tennyson  sings  her  praise  as 

the  land  that  freemen  till, 
That  sober-suited  Freedom  chose, 
The  land  where,  girt  with  friends  or  foes, 
A  man  may  sneak  the  thing  he  will. 

He  honours  and  reveres  the  Queen,  but  it 
is  because  her  power  is  the  foundation  and 
defense  of  liberty ;  because  of  her  it  may 
be  said  that 

Statesmen  at  her  council  met 

Who  knew  the  season  when  to  take 
Occasion  by  the  hand,  and  make 

The  bounds  of  freedom  wider  yet, 


88  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

By  shaping  some  august  decree, 

Which  kept  her  throne  unshaken  still, 
Broad-bas'd  npon  the  people's  will, 

And  compass' d  by  the  inviolate  sea. 

Think  you  he  would  have  written  thus  if 
Charles  Stuart,  bribe-taker,  extortioner, 
tyrant,  dignified  and  weak  betrayer  of  his 
best  friends,  had  been  his  sovereign?  His 
own  words  tell  us  on  which  side  he  would 
have  stood  in  that  great  revolt.  In  the 
verses  written  on  The  Third  of  February, 
1852,  he  reproaches  the  Parliament  for  their 
seeming  purpose  to  truckle  to  Napoleon, 
after  the  coup  d  yetat,  and  cries : 

Shall  we  fear  him  f    Our  own  we  never  feared. 

From  our  first  Charles  by  force  we  wrung  our  claims. 
Pricked  by  the  Papal  spur,  we  reared, 

We  flung  the  burthen  of  the  second  James. 

And  again,  in  the  poem  entitled  England 
and  America  in  1782,  he  justifies  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  as  a  lesson  taught  by  Eng- 
land herself,  and  summons  his  country  to 
exult  in  the  freedom  of  her  children. 

But  thou,  rejoice  with  liberal  joy  I 

Lift  up  thy  rocky  face, 
And  shatter,  when  the  storms  are  black, 
In  many  a  streaming  torrent  back, 

The  seas  that  shock  thy  base. 

Whatever  harmonies  of  law 
The  growing  world  assume, 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  89 

The  work  is  thine,  —  the  single  note 
From  the  deep  chord  that  Hampden  smote 
Will  vibrate  to  the  doom. 

Here  is  the  grand  Miltonic  ring,  not  now 
disturbed  and  roughened  by  the  harshness 
of  opposition,  the  bitterness  of  disappoint- 
ment, the  sadness  of  despair,  but  rounded 
in  the  calm  fulness  of  triumph.  "The 
whirligig  of  Time  brings  in  his  revenges." 
The  bars  of  oppression  are  powerless  to  stay 
the  tide  of  progress. 

The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  new. 
And  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways. 

If  Milton  were  alive  to-day  he  would  find 
his  ideals  largely  realized  ;  freedom  of  wor- 
ship, freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  edu- 
cation, no  longer  things  to  be  fought  for,  but 
things  to  be  enjoyed ;  the  principle  of  pop- 
ular representation  firmly  ingrained  in  the 
constitution  of  the  British  monarchy  (which 
Tennyson  calls  "  a  crowned  Republic  "  ),  and 
the  spirit  of  "  the  good  old  cause,"  the  peo- 
ple's cause  which  seemed  lost  when  the  sec- 
ond Charles  came  back,  now  victorious  and 
peacefully  guiding  the  destinies  of  the  na- 
tion into  a  yet  wider  and  more  glorious 
liberty. 

But  what  would  be  the  effect  of  such  an 


90  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

environment  upon  such  a  character  as  his  ? 
What  would  Milton  have  been  in  this  nine- 
teenth century  ?  If  we  can  trust  the  prophe- 
cies of  his  early  years  ;  if  we  can  regard  the 
hints  of  his  own  preferences  and  plans,  from 
whose  fruition  a  stern  sense  of  duty,  like  a 
fiery-sworded  angel,  barred  him  out,  we  must 
imagine  the  course  of  his  life,  the  develop- 
ment of  his  genius,  as  something  very  differ- 
ent from  what  they  actually  were.  An  age 
of  peace  and  prosperity,  tbe  comfort  and 
quietude  of  a  well-ordered  home,  freedom  to 
pursue  his  studious  researches  and  cultivate 
his  artistic  tastes  to  the  full,  an  atmos- 
phere of  liberal  approbation  and  encourage- 
ment, —  circumstances  such  as  these  would 
have  guided  his  life  and  work  into  a  much 
closer  parallel  with  Tennyson,  and  yet  they 
never  could  have  made  him  other  than  him- 
self. For  his  was  a  seraphic  spirit,  strong, 
indomitable,  unalterable ;  and  even  the  most 
subtile  influence  of  surroundings  could  never 
have  destroyed  or  changed  him  fundamen- 
tally. So  it  was  true,  as  Macaulay  has  said, 
that  "from  the  Parliament  and  from  the 
court,  from  the  conventicle  and  from  the 
Gothic  cloister,  from  the  gloomy  and  sepul- 
chral  rites   of  the    Roundheads,   and   from 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  91 

the  Christmas  revel  of  the  hospitable  cava- 
lier, his  nature  selected  and  drew  to  itself 
whatever  was  great  and  good,  while  it  re- 
jected all  the  base  and  pernicious  ingre- 
dients by  which  these  finer  elements  were 
defiled."  And  yet  the  very  process  of  re- 
jection had  its  effect  upon  him.  The  fierce 
conflicts  of  theology  and  politics  in  which 
for  twenty  years  he  was  absorbed  left  their 
marks  upon  him  for  good  and  for  evil.  They 
tried  him  as  by  fire.  They  brought  out  all 
his  strength  of  action  and  endurance.  They 
made  his  will  like  steel.  They  gave  him 
the  God-like  power  of  one  who  has  suffered 
to  the  uttermost.  But  they  also  disturbed, 
at  least  for  a  time,  the  serenity  of  his  men- 
tal processes.  They  made  the  flow  of  his 
thought  turbulent  and  uneven.  They  nar- 
rowed, at  the  same  time  that  they  intensi- 
fied, his  emotions.  They  made  him  an  in- 
veterate controversialist,  whose  God  must 
argue  and  whose  angels  were  debaters. 
They  crushed  his  humour  and  his  tender- 
ness. Himself,  however,  the  living  poet,  the 
supreme  imagination,  the  seraphic  utterance, 
they  did  not  crush,  but  rather  strengthened. 
And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  in  him  we  have 
the  miracle  of  literature,  —  the  lost  river  of 


92  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

poetry  springing  suddenly,  as  at  Divine  com- 
mand, from  the  bosom  of  the  rock,  no  trick- 
ling and  diminished  rill,  but  a  sweeping 
flood,  laden  with  richest  argosies  of  thought. 


IV. 

How  to  speak  of  Paradise  Lost  I  know 
not.  To  call  it  a  master-work  is  superfluous. 
To  say  that  it  stands  absolutely  alone  and 
supreme  is  both  true  and  false.  Farts  of  it 
are  like  other  poems,  and  yet  there  is  no 
poem  in  the  world  like  it.  The  theme  is 
old ;  had  been  treated  by  the  author  of 
Genesis  in  brief,  by  Du  Bartas  and  other 
rhymers  at  length.  The  manner  is  old,  in- 
herited from  Virgil  and  Dante.  And  yet, 
beyond  all  question,  Paradise  Lost  is  one 
of  the  most  unique,  individual,  unmistaka- 
ble poems  in  the  world's  literature.  Imita- 
tions of  it  have  been  attempted  by  Mont- 
gomery, Pollok,  Bickersteth,  and  other  pious 
versifiers,  but  they  are  no  more  like  the 
original  than  St.  Peter's  in  Montreal  is  like 
St.  Peter's  in  Rome,  or  than  the  pile  of 
coarse-grained  limestone  on  New  York's 
Fifth  Avenue  is  like  the  Cathedral  of 
Milan,  with  its 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  93 

Chanting  quires, 
The  giant  windows'  blazoned  fires, 
The  height,  the  space,  the  gloom,  the  glory, 
A  mount  of  marble,  a  hundred  spires ! 

Imitation  may  be  the  sincerest  flattery, 
but  imitation  never  produces  the  deepest 
resemblance.  The  man  who  imitates  is  con- 
cerned with  that  which  is  outward,  but 
kinship  of  spirit  is  inward.  He  who  is  next 
of  kin  to  a  master-mind  will  himself  be  too 
great  for  the  work  of  a  copyist ;  he  will 
be  influenced,  if  at  all,  unconsciously  ;  and 
though  the  intellectual  relationship  may  be 
expressed  also  in  some  external  traits  of 
speech  and  manner,  the  true  likeness  will  be 
in  the  temper  of  the  soul  and  the  sameness 
of  the  moral  purpose.  Such  likeness,  I 
think,  we  can  discern  between  Paradise 
Lost  and  Tennyson's  greatest  works,  The 
Idylls  of  the  King  and  In  Memoriam. 

I  shall  speak  first  and  more  briefly  of  the 
Idylls,  because  I  intend  to  make  them  the 
subject  of  another  study  from  a  different 
point  of  view.  At  present  we  have  to  con- 
sider only  their  relations  to  the  work  of 
Milton.  And  in  this  connection  we  ought 
not  to  forget  that  he  was  the  first  to  call  at- 
tention to  the  legend  of  King  Arthur  as  a 


94  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

fit  subject  for  a  great  poem.  Having  made 
up  his  mind  to  write  a  national  epic  which 
should  do  for  England  that  which  Tasso  and 
Ariosto  had  done  for  Italy,  "  that  which  the 
greatest  and  choicest  wits  of  Athens  and 
Rome,  and  those  Hebrews  of  old  did  for 
their  country,"  Milton  tells  us  that  he  enter- 
tained for  a  long  time  a  design  to 

Revoke  into  song  the  kings  of  our  island, 

Arthur  yet  from  his  underground  hiding  stirring  to  war- 
fare, 

Or  to  tell  of  those  that  sat  round  him  as  Knights  of  his 
Table ; 

Great-souled  heroes  unmatched,  and  (O  might  the  spirit 
but  aid  me), 

Shiver  the  Saxon  phalanxes  under  the  shook  of  the  Bri- 
tons. 

The  design  was  abandoned  :  but  it  was  a 
fortunate  fate  that  brought  it  at  last  into  the 
hands  of  the  one  man,  since  Milton  died, 
who  was  able  to  carry  it  to  completion. 

Compare  the  verse  of  the  Idylls  with  that 
of  Paradise  Lost. 

Both  Milton  and  Tennyson  have  been  led 
by  their  study  of  the  classic  poets  to  under- 
stand that  rhyme  is  the  least  important  ele- 
ment of  good  poetry ;  the  best  music  is  made 
by  the  concord  rather  than  by  the  unison 
of  sounds,  and  the  coincidence  of  final  con- 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  95 

sonants  is  but  a  slight  matter  compared  with 
the  cadence  of  syllables  and  the  accented 
harmony  of  long  vowels.  Indeed  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  the  inevitable  recurrence 
of  the  echo  of  rhyme  does  not  disturb  and 
break  the  music  more  than  it  enhances  it. 
Certainly  Milton  thought  so,  and  he  frank- 
ly took  great  credit  to  himself  for  setting 
the  example,  "the  first  in  English,  of  an- 
cient liberty  recovered  to  heroic  poems  from 
the  troublesome  and  modern  bondage  of 
riming." 

There  were  many  to  follow  him  in  this 
path,  but  for  the  most  part  with  ignominious 
and  lamentable  failure.  They  fell  into  the 
mistake  of  thinking  that  because  unrhymed 
verse  was  more  free  it  was  less  difficult,  and, 
making  their  liberty  a  cloak  of  poetic  li- 
cense, they  poured  forth  floods  of  accurately 
measured  prose  under  the  delusion  that  they 
were  writing  blank-verse.  The  fact  is  that 
this  is  the  one  form  of  verse  which  requires 
the  most  delicate  ear  and  the  most  patient 
labour.  In  Cowper,  Coleridge,  Southey, 
Wordsworth,  Browning,  these  preconditions 
are  wanting.  And  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  Matthew  Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rus- 
turn,  the  first  English   blank-verse  worthy 


96  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

to  compare  with  that  of  Paradise  Lost  is 
found  in  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King. 

There  is  a  shade  of  contrast  in  the  move- 
ment of  the  two  poems.  Each  has  its  own 
distinctive  quality.  In  Milton  we  observe 
a  more  stately  and  majestic  march,  more  of 
rhythm :  in  Tennyson  a  sweeter  and  more 
perfect  tone,  more  of  melody.  These  quali- 
ties correspond,  in  verse,  to  form  and  colour 
in  painting.  We  might  say  that  Milton  is 
the  greater  draughtsman,  as  Michael  An- 
gelo;  Tennyson  the  better  colourist,  as  Ra- 
phael. But  the  difference  between  the  two 
painters  is  always  greater  than  that  between 
the  two  poets.  For  the  methods  by  which 
they  produce  their  effects  are  substantially 
the  same ;  and  their  results  differ  chiefly  as 
the  work  of  a  strong,  but  sometimes  heavy, 
hand  differs  from  that  of  a  hand  less  power- 
ful, but  better  disciplined. 

De  Quincey  has  said,  somewhere  or  other, 
that  finding  fault  with  Milton's  versification 
is  a  dangerous  pastime.  The  lines  which  you 
select  for  criticism  have  a  way  of  justifying 
themselves  at  your  expense.  That  which 
you  have  condemned  as  a  palpable  blunder, 
an  unpardonable  discord,  is  manifested  in 
the  mouth  of  a  better  reader  as  majestically 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  97 

right  and  harmonious.  And  so,  when  you 
attempt  to  take  liberties  with  any  passage 
of  his,  you  are  apt  to  feel  as  when  coming 
upon  what  appears  to  be  a  dead  lion  in  a 
forest.  You  have  an  uncomfortable  sus- 
picion that  he  may  not  be  dead,  but  only 
sleeping ;  or  perhaps  not  even  sleeping,  but 
only  shamming.  Many  an  unwary  critic  has 
been  thus  unpleasantly  surprised.  Notably 
Drs.  Johnson  and  Bentley,  and  in  a  small 
way  Walter  Savage  Landor,  roaring  over 
Milton's  mistakes,  have  proved  themselves 
distinctly  asinine. 

But  for  all  that,  there  are  mistakes  in 
Paradise  Lost.  I  say  it  with  due  fear, 
and  not  without  a  feeling  of  gratitude  that 
the  purpose  of  this  essay  does  not  require 
me  to  specify  them.  But  a  sense  of  literary 
candour  forces  me  to  confess  the  opinion 
that  the  great  epic  contains  passages  in 
which  the  heaviness  of  the  thought  has  in- 
fected the  verse,  passages  which  can  be  read 
only  with  tiresome  effort,  lines  in  which  the 
organ-player's  foot  seems  to  have  slipped 
upon  the  pedals  and  made  a  ponderous  dis- 
cord. This  cannot  be  said  of  the  Idylls. 
Their  music  is  not  broken  or  jangled.  It 
may  never  rise  to  the  loftiest  heights,  but  it 


98  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

never  falls  to  the  lowest  depths.  Tennyson 
has  written  nothing  so  strong  as  the  flight 
of  Satan  through  Chaos,  nothing  so  sublime 
as  the  invocation  to  Light,  nothing  so  rich 
as  the  first  description  of  Eden ;  but  taking 
the  blank-verse  of  the  Idylls  through  and 
through,  as  a  work  of  art,  it  is  more  finished, 
more  expressive,  more  perfectly  musical  than 
that  of  Paradise  Lost. 

The  true  relationship  of  these  poems  lies, 
as  I  have  said,  beneath  the  surface.  It  con- 
sists in  their  ideal  unity  of  theme  and 
lesson.  For  what  is  it  in  fact  with  which 
Milton  and  Tennyson  concern  themselves? 
Not  the  mere  story  of  Adam  and  Eve's 
transgression;  not  the  legendary  wars  of 
Arthur  and  his  knights  ;  but  the  everlasting 
conflict  of  the  human  soul  with  the  adver- 
sary, the  struggle  against  sin,  the  power  of 
the  slightest  taint  of  evil  to  infect,  pollute, 
destroy  all  that  is  fairest  and  best.  Both  poets 
tell  the  story  of  a  paradise  lost,  and  lost 
through  sin  ;  first,  the  happy  garden  designed 
by  God  to  be  the  home  of  stainless  inno- 
cence and  bliss,  whose  gates  are  closed  for- 
ever against  the  guilty  race  ;  and  then,  the 
glorious  realm  of  peace  and  love  and  law 
which   the   strong   and    noble    king   would 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  99 

make  and  defend  amid  the  world's  warfares, 
but  which  is  secretly  corrupted,  undermined, 
destroyed  at   ast  in  blackening  gloom. 

To  Arthur,  as  to  Adam,  destruction  comes 
through  that  which  seems,  and  indeed  is, 
the  loveliest  and  the  dearest.  The  beauteous 
mother  of  mankind,  fairer  than  all  her  daugh- 
ters since,  drawn  by  her  own  highest  desire  of 
knowledge  into  disobedience,  yields  the  first 
entrance  to  the  fatal  sin ;  and  Guinevere, 
the  imperial-moulded  queen,  led  by  degrees 
from  a  true  friendship  into  a  false  love  for 
Lancelot,  infects  the  court  and  the  whole 
realm  with  death.  Vain  are  all  safeguards 
and  defenses ;  vain  all  high  resolves  and 
noble  purposes ;  vain  the  instructions  of 
the  archangel  charging  the  possessors  of 
Eden  to 

Be  strong,  live  happy,  and  love  !  but  first  of  all 
Him  whom  to  love  is  to  obey  ! 

vain  the  strait  vows  and  solemn  oaths  by 
which  the  founder  of  the  Table  bound  his 
knights 

To  reverence  the  King  as  if  he  were 

Their  conscience,  and  their  conscience  as  their  King, 

To  break  the  heathen  and  uphold  the  Christ. 

All  in  vain  !  for  sin  comes  creeping  in  ;  and 
sin,  the  slightest,  the  most  seeming-venial, 


100         THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

the  most  beautiful,  is  the  seed  of  shame  and 
death.  This  is  the  profound  truth  to  which 
the  Idylls  of  the  King  and  Paradise  Lost 
alike  bear  witness.  And  to  teach  this,  to 
teach  it  in  forms  of  highest  art  which  should 
live  forever  in  the  imagination  of  the  race, 
was  the  moral  purpose  of  Milton  and  Ten- 
nyson. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  theme, 
which  is  hardly  touched  in  the  Idylls.  Sin 
has  a  relation  to  God  as  well  as  to  man, 
since  it  exists  in  His  universe.  Is  it  stronger 
than  the  Almighty  ?  Is  His  will  wrath  ?  Is 
His  purpose  destruction  ?  Is  darkness  the 
goal  of  all  things,  and  is  there  no  other  sig- 
nificance in  death  ;  no  deliverance  from  its 
gloomy  power  ?  In  Paradise  Lost,  Milton 
has  dealt  with  this  problem  also.  Side  by 
side  with  the  record  "  of  man's  first  disobe- 
dience "  he  has  constructed  the  great  argu- 
ment whereby  he  would 

Assert  eternal  Providence 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 

The  poem  has,  therefore,  parallel  with  its 
human  side,  a  divine  side,  for  which  we  shall 
look  in  vain  among  the  Idylls  of  the  King. 
Tennyson  has  approached  this  problem  from 
another  standpoint  in  a  different  manner. 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  101 

And  if  we  wish  to  know  his  solution  of  it, 
his  answer  to  the  mystery  of  death,  we  must 
look  for  it  in  In  Memoriam. 

This  poem  is  an  elegy  for  Arthur  Hall  am, 
finished  throughout  its  seven  hundred  and 
twenty-four  stanzas  with  all  that  delicate 
care  which  the  elegiac  form  requires,  and 
permeated  with  the  tone  of  personal  grie£ 
not  passionate,  but  profound  and  pure.  But 
it  is  such  an  elegy  as  the  world  has  never 
seen  before,  and  never  will  see  again.  It  is 
the  work  of  years,  elaborated  with  such  skill 
and  adorned  with  such  richness  of  poetic 
imagery  as  other  men  have  thought  too  great 
to  bestow  upon  an  epic.  It  is  the  most  ex- 
quisite structure  ever  reared  above  a  human 
grave,  more  wondrous  and  more  immortal 
than  that  world-famous  tomb  which  widowed 
Artemisia  built  for  the  Carian  Mausolus. 
But  it  is  also  something  far  grander  and 
better.  Beyond  the  narrow  range  of  per- 
sonal loss  and  loneliness,  it  sweeps  into  the 
presence  of  the  eternal  realities,  faces  the 
great  questions  of  our  mysterious  existence, 
and  reaches  out  to  lay  hold  of  that'  hope 
which  is  unseen  but  abiding,  whereby  alone 
we  are  saved.  Its  motto  might  well  be  given 
in  the  words  of  St.  Paul:    For  ow  light 


102         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

affliction  which  is  but  for  a  moment  worheth 
for  us  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal 
weight  of  glory ;  while  we  look  not  at  the 
things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen ;  for  the  things  which 
are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the  things  which 
are  not  seen  are  eternal. 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  almost  absurd 
to  compare  the  elegy  with  the  epic,  and  im- 
possible to  discover  any  resemblance  between 
those  long -rolling,  thunderous  periods  of 
blank-verse  and  these  short  swallow-flights 
of  song  which  "  dip  their  wings  in  tears  and 
skim  away."  The  comparison  of  In  Memo- 
nam  with  Lycidas  would  certainly  appear 
more  easy  and  obvious ;  so  obvious,  indeed, 
that  it  has  been  made  a  thousand  times,  and 
is  fluently  repeated  by  every  critic  who  has 
had  occasion  to  speak  of  English  elegies. 
But  this  is  just  one  of  those  cases  in  which 
an  external  similarity  conceals  a  fundamental 
unlikeness.  For,  in  the  first  place,  Edward 
King,  to  whose  memory  Lycidas  was  dedi- 
cated, was  far  from  being  an  intimate  friend 
of  Milton,  and  his  lament  has  no  touch  of 
the  deep  heart-sorrow  which  throbs  in  In 
Memoriam.  And,  in  the  second  place,  Ly- 
cidas is  in  no  sense  a  metaphysical  poem, 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  103 

does  not  descend  into  the  depths  or  attempt 
to  answer  the  vexed  questions.  But  In  Me- 
moriam  is,  in  its  very  essence,  profoundly 
and  thoroughly  metaphysical ;  and  this  brings 
it  at  once  into  close  relation  with  Paradise 
Lost.  They  are  the  two  most  famous  poems 
—  with  the  exception  of  Dante's  Divine 
Comedy  —  which  deal  directly  with  the  mys- 
teries of  faith  and  reason,  the  doctrine  of 
God  and  immortality. 

There  is  a  point,  however,  in  which  we 
must  acknowledge  an  essential  and  absolute 
difference  between  the  great  epic  and  the 
great  elegy,  something  deeper  and  more  vital 
than  any  contrast  of  form  and  metre.  Par- 
adise Lost  is  a  theological  poem,  In  Memo- 
riam  is  a  religious  poem.  The  distinction  is 
narrow,  but  deep.  For  religion  differs  from 
theology  as  life  differs  from  biology.  Milton 
approaches  the  problem  from  the  side  of 
reason,  resting,  it  is  true,  upon  a  supernat- 
ural revelation,  but  careful  to  reduce  all 
its  contents  to  a  logical  form,  demanding  a 
clearly-formulated  and  closely-linked  expla- 
nation of  all  things,  and  seeking  to  establish 
his  system  of  truth  upon  the  basis  of  sound 
argument.  His  method  is  distinctly  rational ; 
Tennyson's  is  emotional.     He  has  no  linked 


104  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

chain  of  deductive  reasoning ;  no  sharp-cut 
definition  of  objective  truths.  His  faith  is 
subjective,  intuitive.  Where  proof  fails  him, 
he  will  still  believe.  When  the  processes 
of  reason  are  shaken,  disturbed,  frustrated  ; 
when  absolute  demonstration  appears  im- 
possible, and  doubt  claims  a  gloomy  empire 
in  the  mind,  then  the  deathless  fire  that  God 
has  kindled  in  the  breast  burns  toward  that 
heaven  which  is  its  source  and  home,  and  the 
swift  answer  of  immortal  love  leaps  out  to 
solve  the  mystery  of  the  grave.  Thus  Ten- 
nyson feels  after  God,  and  leads  us  by  the 
paths  of  faith  and  emotion  to  the  same  goal 
which  Milton  reaches  by  the  road  of  reason 
and  logic. 

Each  of  these  methods  is  characteristic 
not  only  of  the  poet  who  uses  it,"  but  also  of 
the  age  in^  which  it  is  employed.  Paradise 
Lost  does  not  echo  more  distinctly  the  age 
of  the  Westminster  divines  than  In  Memo- 
riam  represents  the  age  of  Maurice  and 
Kingsley  and  Robertson.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
think  that  the  tendency  of  our  day  is  toward 
rationalism.  That  was  the  drift  of  Milton's 
time.  Our  modern  movement  is  toward 
emotionalism,  a  religion  of  feeling,  a  sub- 
jective system  in  which  the  sentiments  and 


MILTON  AND   TENNYSON.  105 

affections  shall  be  acknowledged  as  lawful 
tests  of  truth.  This  movement  has  undoubt- 
edly an  element  of  danger  in  it,  as  well  as 
an  element  of  promise.  It  may  be  carried  to 
a  false  extreme.  But  this  much  is  clear,  — 
it  has  been  the  strongest  inspiration  of  the 
men  of  our  own  time  who  have  fought  most 
bravely  against  atheism  and  the  cold  nega- 
tions of  scientific  despair.  And  the  music 
of  it  is  voiced  forever  in  In  Memoriam.  It 
is  the  heart  now,  not  the  colder  reason,  which 
rises  to 

Assert  eternal  Providence 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 

But  the  answer  is  none  other  than  that 
which  was  given  by  the  blind  poet.  The 
larger  meanings  of  In  Memoriam  and  Par' 
adise  Lost  —  whatever  we  may  say  of  their 
lesser  meanings  —  find  their  harmony  in 
the  same 

Strong  Son  of  God. 

Is  Tennyson  a  Pantheist  because  he  speaks 
of 

One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-off  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  move*  ? 

Then  so  is  Milton  a  Pantheist  when  he 
makes  the  Son  say  to  the  Father,— 


106  TEE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Thou  shalt  be  all  in  all,  and  I  in  thee 
Forever,  and  in  me  all  whom  thou  lovest. 

Is  Tennyson  an  Agnostic  because  he 
speaks  of  the  "truths  that  never  can  be 
proved,"  and  finds  a  final  answer  to  the  mys- 
teries of  life  only  in  a  hope  which  is  hid- 
den "  behind  the  veil "  ?  Then  so  is  Milton 
an  Agnostic,  because  he  declares 

Heaven  is  for  thee  too  high 
To  know  what  passes  there.     Be  lowly  wise ; 
Think  only  what  concerns  thee  and  thy  being. 
Solicit  not  thy  thoughts  with  matters  hid ; 
Leave  them  to  God  above- 

Is  Tennyson  a  Universalist  because  he  says, 

Oh,  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 

Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood  ? 

Then  so  is  Milton  a  Universalist  when  he 
exclaims,  — 

O,  goodness  infinite,  goodness  immense, 
That  all  this  good  of  evil  shall  produce, 
And  evil  turn  to  good ! 

The  faith  of  the  two  poets  is  one ;  the 
great  lesson  of  In  Memoriam  and  Paradise 
Lost  is  the  same.  The  hope  of  the  universe 
is  in  the  Son  of  God,  whom  Milton  and  Ten- 
nyson both  call  "  Immortal  Love."  To  Him 
through  mists  and  shadows  we  must  look  up, 


MILTON  AND  TENNYSON.  107 

Gladly  behold,  though  but  his  utmost  skirts 
Of  glory,  and  far-off  his  steps  adore. 

Thus  our  cry  out  of  the  darkness  shall  be 
answered.  Knowledge  shall  grow  from  more 
to  more. 

Light  after  light  well-used  we  shall  attain, 
And  to  the  end  persisting  safe  arrive. 

But  this  can  come  only  through  self -surren- 
der and  obedience,  only  through  the  conse- 
cration of  the  free-will  to  God  who  gave  it ; 
and  the  highest  prayer  of  the  light-seeking, 
upward-striving  human  soul  is  this :  — 

O,  living  will  that  shalt  endure, 

When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock, 
Rise  in  the  spiritual  Rock, 

Flow  through  our  deeds  and  make  them  pure, 

That  we  may  lift  from  out  the  dust 

A  voice  as  unto  him  that  hears, 

A  cry  above  the  conquered  years, 
To  one  that  with  us  works  and  trust, 

With  faith  that  comes  of  self-control, 
The  truths  that  never  can  be  proved 
Until  we  close  with  all  we  love, 

And  all  we  flow  from,  soul  in  souL 


THE  PRINCESS  AND  MAUD. 


THE  PRINCESS  AND  MAUD. 

It  was  somewhere  in  the  forties  of  this 
century  that  Edgar  Allan  Poe  put  forth  a 
new  doctrine  of  poetry,  which,  if  I  remem- 
ber rightly,  ran  somewhat  on  this  wise : 
'The  greatest  poems  must  be  short.  For 
the  poetic  inspiration  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
flash  of  lightning  and  endures  only  for  a 
moment.  But  what  a  man  writes  between 
the  flashes  is  worth  comparatively  little. 
All  long  poems  are  therefore,  of  necessity, 
poor  in  proportion  to  their  length,  —  or  at 
best  they  are  but  a  mass  of  pudding  in  which 
the  luscious  plums  of  poetry  are  embedded 
and  partially  concealed.' 

This  ingenious  theory  (which  has  a  slight 
air  of  special  pleading)  has  never  been  gen- 
erally accepted.  Indeed,  at  the  very  time 
when  Mr.  Poe  was  propounding  it,  and  using 
the  early  poems  of  Tennyson  as  an  illus- 
tration, the  world  at  large  was  taking  for 
granted  the  truth  of  the  opposite  theory,  and 
demanding  that  the  newly  discovered   poet 


112  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

should  prove  his  claim  to  greatness  by  writ- 
ing something  long.  "  We  want  to  see," 
said  one  of  the  best  of  the  critics  in  1842, 
"  a  poem  of  power  and  sustained  energy. 
Mr.  Tennyson  already  enjoys  a  high  posi- 
tion ;  let  him  aim  at  one  still  higher ;  why 
not  the  highest  ?  " 

I  believe  that  it  was,  at  least  partly,  in 
answer  to  demands  of  this  kind  that  The 
Princess  appeared  in  1847.  Mr.  Poe  might 
have  claimed  it  as  an  illustration  of  his 
theory.  For  it  certainly  adds  more  to  the 
bulk  of  Tennyson's  poems  than  it  con- 
tributes to  the  lasting  fame  of  his  poetry. 
Its  length  is  greater  than  its  merit.  There 
are.  parts  of  it  in  which  the  style  falls  below 
the  level  of  poetry  of  the  first  rank  ;  and 
these  are  the  very  parts  where  the  verse 
is  most  diffuse  and  the  story  moves  most 
slowly  through  thickets  of  overgrown  de- 
scription. The  "  flash  of  lightning  theory  " 
of  poetic  inspiration,  although  it  is  very  far 
from  being  true  and  complete  as  a  whole, 
appears  to  fit  this  poem  with  peculiar  nicety ; 
for '"the  finest  things  in  it  are  quite  dis- 
tinct, and  so  much  better  than  the  rest  that 
they  stand  out  as  if  illumined  with  sudden 
light. 


THE  PRINCESS  AND   MAUD.  113 

I  know  that  there  are  some  ardent  ad- 
mirers of  Tennyson  who  will  dispute  this 
opinion.  They  will  point  out  the  admirable 
moral  lesson  of  The  Princess,  which  is  evi- 
dent, and  dwell  upon  its  great  influence  in 
advancing  the  higher  education  of  women, 
which  is  indisputable.  They  will  insist  upon 
its  manifest  superiority  to  other  contempo- 
rary novels  in  verse,  like  Lucile  or  The 
Angel  in  the  House.  Let  us  grant  all  this. 
Still  it  does  not  touch  the  point  of  the  criti- 
cism. For  it  is  Tennyson  himself  who  gives 
the  standard  of  comparison.  If  Giulio  Ro- 
mano had  painted  the  Madonna  di  Foligno, 
we  might  call  it  a  great  success  —  for  him. 
But  beside  La*  Sistina,  or  even  beside  the 
little  Madonna  del  Granduca,  it  suffers. 
Enoch  Arden,  Dora,  Aylmers  Field,  Locks- 
ley  Hall,  are  all  shorter  than  The  Princess, 
but  they  are  better.  Their  inspiration  is 
more  sustained.  The  style  fits  the  substance 
more  perfectly.  The  poetic  life  in  them  is 
stronger  and  more  enduring.  One  might 
say  of  them  that  they  have  more  soul  and 
less  body.  In  brief,  what  I  mean  to  say  is 
this :  The  Princess  is  one  of  the  minor 
poems  of  a  major  poet. 

But  there  is  poetry  enough  in  it  to  make 


114         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

the  reputation  of  a  man  of  ordinary  genius. 
And  what  I  want  to  do  in  this  little  essay  is 
to  value  this  element  of  genuine  poetry  at 
its  true  worth,  and  to  distinguish  it,  if  I 
can,  from  the  lower  elements  which  seem  to 
me  to  mar  the  beauty  and  weaken  the  force 
of  the  poem. 

The  Princess  has  for  its  theme  the  eman- 
cipation of  woman,  —  a  great  question,  cer- 
tainly, but  also  a  vexed  question,  and  one 
which  is  better  adapted  to  prose  than  to 
poetry,  at  least  in  the  present  stage  of  its 
discussion.  It  has  so  many  sides,  and  such 
humorous  aspects,  and  such  tedious  compli- 
cations in  this  Nineteenth  Century,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  lift  it  up  into  the  realm  of  the 
ideal ;  and  yet  I  suppose  the  man  does  not 
live,  certainly  the  poet  can  hardly  be  found, 
who  would  venture  to  treat  it  altogether  as 
a  subject  for  realistic  comedy.  That  would 
be  a  dangerous,  perhaps  a  fatal  experiment. 
Tennyson  appears  to  have  felt  this  difficulty. 
He  calls  his  story  of  the  Princess  Ida,  who 
set  out  to  be  the  deliverer  of  her  sex  by 
founding  a  Woman's  University,  and  ended 
by  marrying  the  Prince  who  came  to  woo 
her  in  female  disguise,  "a  Medley."  He 
represents  the  imaginary  poet,  who  appears 


THE  PRINCESS  AND  MAUD.  115 

in  the  Prologue,  and  who  undertakes  to 
dress  up  the  story  in  verse  for  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  to  whom  it  was  told  at  a  pic- 
nic, as  being  in  a  strait  betwixt  two  parties 
in  the  audience :  one  party  demanding  a  bur- 
lesque; the  other  party  wishing  for  some- 
thing  "  true-heroic."     And  so  he  says,  — 

I  moved  as  in  a  strange  diagonal, 

And  maybe  neither  pleased  myself  nor  them. 

This  diagonal  movement  may  have  been 
necessary ;  but  it  is  unquestionably  a  little 
confusing.  One  hardly  knows  how  to  take 
the  poet.  At  one  moment  he  is  very  much  in 
earnest ;  the  next  moment  he  seems  to  be 
making  fun  of  the  woman's  college.  The 
style  is  like  a  breeze  which  blows  northwest 
by  southeast ;  it  may  be  a  very  lively  breeze, 
and  full  of  sweet  odours  from  every  quarter ; 
but  the  trouble  is  that  we  cannot  tell  which 
way  to  trim  our  sails  to  catch  the  force  of 
it,  and  so  our  craft  goes  jibing  to  and  fro, 
without  making  progress  in  any  direction. 

I  think  we  feel  this  uncertainty  most  of  all 
in  the  characters  of  the  Princess  and  the 
Prince,  —  and  I  name  the  Princess  first  be- 
cause she  is  evidently  the  hero  of  the  poem. 
Sometimes  she  appears  very  admirable  and 
lovable,  in  a  stately  kind  of  beauty;  but 


116        THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

again  she  seems  like  a  woman  from  whom  a 
man  with  ordinary  prudence  and  a  proper 
regard  for  his  own  sense  of  humour  would 
promptly  and  carefully  flee  away,  appreciat- 
ing the  truth  of  the  description  which  her 
father,  King  Gama,  gives  of  her,  — 

Awful  odes  she  wrote, 
Too  awful  sure  for  what  they  treated  of, 
But  all  she  says  and  does  is  awful. 

There  is  a  touch  of  her  own  style,  it  seems 
to  me,  here  and  there  in  the  poem.  The 
epithets  are  somewhat  too  numerous  and  too 
stately.  The  art  is  decidedly  arabesque ; 
there  is  a  surplus  of  ornament ;  and  here, 
more  than  anywhere  else,  one  finds  it  difficult 
to  defend  Tennyson  from  the  charge  of  over- 
elaboration.  For  example,  he  says  of  the 
eight  "  daughters  of  the  plough,"  who  worked 
at  the  woman's  college,  that 

Each  was  like  a  Druid  rock; 
Or  like  a  spire  of  land  that  stands  apart 
Cleft  from  the  main,  and  wail'd  about  with  mews. 

The  image  is  grand,  —  just  a  little  too 
grand  for  a  group  of  female  servants,  sum- 
moned to  eject  the  three  masculine  intruders 
from  the  university. 

The  Princess  was  the  first  of  Tennyson's 
poems  to  become  widely  known  in  America, 
and  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  most  favour- 


THE  PRINCESS  AND   MAUD.  117 

able,  as  well  as  the  most  extensive,  criticisms 
of  it  have  come  from  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic. First,  there  was  Professor  James 
Hadley's  thoughtful  review  in  1849;  then 
Mr.  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman's  eloquent 
paragraphs  in  "  Victorian  Poets ;"  then  Mr. 
S.  E.  Dawson's  admirable  monograph  pub- 
lished in  Montreal ;  and  finally  Mr.  William 
J.  Rolfe's  scholarly  "  variorum  "  edition  of 
The  Princess,  with  notes.  Mr.  Dawson's 
excellent  little  book  was  the  occasion  of 
drawing  from  Tennyson  a  letter,  which 
seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  valuable,  as  it 
is  certainly  one  of  the  longest,  pieces  of 
prose  that  he  has  ever  given  to  the  public. 
It  describes  his  manner  of  observing  nature 
and  his  practice  of  making  a  rough  mental 
note  in  four  or  five  words,  like  an  artist's 
sketch,  of  whatever  strikes  him  as  pictur- 
esque, that  is  to  say,  fit  to  go  into  a  picture. 
The  Princess  is  full  of  the  results  of  this 
kind  of  work,  scattered  here  and  there  like 
flowers  in  a  tangle  of "  meadow-grass.  For 
example,  take  these  two  descriptions  of 
dawn :  — 

Notice  of  a  change  in  the  dark  world 
Was  lispt  about  the  acacias,  and  a  bird 
That  early  woke  to  feed  ber  little  ones 
Sent  from  her  dewy  breast  a  cry  for  light.  — 


118  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Morn  in  the  white  wake  of  the  morning  star 
Came  f nrrowing  all  the  orient  into  gold.  — 

These  are  as  different  in  feeling  as  possible, 
yet  each  is  true,  and  each  is  fitted  to  the 
place  in  which  it  stands ;  for  the  one  de- 
scribes the  beginning  of  a  day  among  the 
splendours  of  the  royal  college  before  it  was 
broken  up ;  the  other  describes  the  twilight 
of  the  morning  in  which  the  Princess  began 
to  yield  her  heart  to  the  tender  touch  of  love. 
Or  take  again  these  two  pictures  of  storm :  — 

And  standing  like  a  stately  pine 
Set  in  a  cataract  on  an  island-crag, 
When  storm  is  on  the  heights,  and  right  and  left 
Suck'd  from  the  dark  heart  of  the  long  hiUa  roll 
The  torrents,  dash'd  to  the  vale. — 

As  one  that  climbs  a  peak  to  gaze 
O'er  land  and  main,  and  sees  a  great  black  cloud 
Drag  inward  from  the  deeps,  a  wall  of  night, 
Blot  out  the  slope  of  sea  from  verge  to  shore, 
And  suck  the  blinding  splendour  from  the  sand, 
And  quenching  lake  by  lake  and  tarn  by  tarn, 
Expunge  the  world. — 

Tennyson  says  that  the  latter  of  these  pas- 
sages is  a  recollection  of  a  coming  tempest 
watched  from  the  summit  of  Snowdon. 
Work  like  this,  so  clear,  so  powerful,  so 
exact,  would  go  far  to  redeem  any  poem, 
however  tedious. 


TBE  PRINCESS  AND  MAUD.  119 

But  better  still  is  the  love-scene  in  the 
last  canto,  where  the  poet  drops  the  tantal- 
izing vein  of  mock-heroics,  and  tells  us  his 
real  thought  of  woman's  place  and  work  in 
the  world,  in  words  which  are  as  wise  as 
they  are  beautiful.  I  have  quoted  them  in 
another  place  and  may  not  repeat  them  here. 
But  there  is  one  passage  which  I  cannot 
forbear  to  give, because  it  seems  to  describe 
something  of  Tennyson's  own  life. 

Alone,  from  earlier  than  I  know, 
Immersed  in  rich  foreshadowings  of  the  world, 
I  loved  the  woman  :  he  that  doth  not,  lives 
A  drowning  life,  besotted  in  sweet  self, 
Or  pines  in  sad  experience  worse  than  death, 
Or  keeps  his  wing'd  affections  clipt  with  crime : 
Yet  was  there  one  thro'  whom  I  loved  her,  one 
Not  learned,  save  in  gracious  household  ways, 
Not  perfect,  nay,  but  full  of  tender  wants, 
No  angel,  but  a  dearer  being,  all  dipt 
In  angel  instincts,  breathing  Paradise, 
Interpreter  between  the  gods  and  men, 
Who  look'd  all  native  to  her  place,  and  yet 
On  tiptoe  seemed  to  touch  upon  a  sphere 
Too  gross  to  tread,  and  all  male  minds  perforce 
Sway'd  to  her  from  their  orbits  as  they  moved, 
And  girded  her  with  music.     Happy  he 
With  such  a  mother !  faith  in  womankind 
Beats  with  his  blood,  and  trust  in  all  things  high 
Comes  easy  to  him,  and  tho'  he  trip  and  fall 
He  shall  not  blind  his  soul  with  clay. 

This  is  worthy  to  be  put  beside  Words- 
worth's — 


120  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

"  A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

But  the  very  best  things  in  the  poem  are, 
"  Tears,  idle  tears,"  the  "  small,  sweet  Idyl," 
and  the  songs  which  divide  the  cantos.  Ten- 
nyson tells  us  in  a  letter  that  these  songs 
were  not  an  after-thought ;  that  he  had  de- 
signed them  from  the  first,  but  doubted 
whether  they  were  necessary,  and  did  not 
overcome  his  laziness  to  insert  them  until  the 
third  edition  in  1850.  It  may  be  that  he 
came  as  near  as  this  to  leaving  out  the  jew- 
els which  are  to  the  poem  what  the  stained- 
glass  windows  are  to  the  confused  vastness 
of  York  Minster,  —  the  light  and  glory  of 
the  structure.  It  would  have  been  a  fatal 
loss.  For  he  has  never  done  anything  more 
pure  and  perfect  than  these  songs,  clear  and 
simple  and  musical  as  the  chime  of  silver 
bells,  deep  in  their  power  of  suggestion  as 
music  itself.  Not  a  word  in  them  can  be 
omitted  or  altered,  neither  can  they  be  trans- 
lated. The  words  are  the  songs.  "  Sweet 
and  low,"  "  Ask  me  no  more,"  and  "  Blow, 
bugle,  blow  "  will  be  remembered  and  sung, 
as  long  as  English  hearts  move  to  the  sweet 
melody  of  love  and  utter  its  secret  meanings 
in  the  English  tongue. 


THE  PRINCESS  AND  MAUD.  121 

I  have  put  Maud  and   The  Princess  to- 
gether, because  it  seems  to  me  that  they  have 
some   things    in    common.     They   are   both 
intensely  modern  ;  both  deal   with   the  nas- 
sion  of  romantic    love  ;  in   both,  the   story 
is  an  important  element  of   interest.     But 
these  pointsTof   resemblance    only  serve  to 
bring  out  more  clearly  the  points  of  contrast. 
The  one  is  epic  ;  the  other  is  dramatic.    The 
one  is  complicated  ;  the  other  is  simple.    The 
style  of  the  one  is  narrative,   diffuse,  deco- 
rated  ;  the  style  of  the  other  is  personal,  di- 
rect, condensed.     In  the  one  you  see  rather 
vague   characters,   whose    development    de- 
pends largely  upon  the  unfolding  of  the  plot ; 
in  the  other  you  see  the  unfolding  of  the  plot 
controlled   oy  the  development  of  a  single, 
strongly-marked  character.     In  fact,  Tenny- 
son himself  has  given  us  the  only  true  start- 
ing-point for  the  criticism  of  each  of  these 
poems  in  a  single  word,  by  calling  the  Prin- 
cess  "a  Medley,"  and  Maud    "a  Mono- 
drama." 

I  will  confess  frankly,  although  frank  con- 
fession is  not  precisely  fashionable  among 
critics,  that  for  a  long  time  I  misunderstood 
Maud  and  underrated  it.  This  came  from 
looking  at  it  from  the  wrong  point  of  view. 


122  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

I   vvas    enlightened    by   hearing   the   poet 
read  it  aloud. 

Tennyson's  reading  was  extraordinary. 
His  voice  was  deep,  strong,  masculine, 
limited  in  its  range,  with  a  tendency  to 
monotone,  broadening  and  prolonging  the 
vowels  and  rolling  the  r's ;  it  was  not  flex- 
ible, nor  melodious  in  the  common  sense  of 
the  word,  but  it  was  musical  in  a  higher 
sense,  as  the  voice  of  the  sea  is  musical. 
When  he  read  he  forgot  all  the  formal 
rules  of  elocution,  raised  his  voice  a  little 
higher  than  his  usual  tone  in  speaking,  and 
poured  out  the  poem  in  a  sustained  rhythmic 
chant.  He  was  carried  away  and  lost  in 
it.  In  the  passionate  passages  his  voice 
rose  and  swelled  like  the  sound  of  the  wind 
in  the  pine-trees ;  in  the  lines  which  ex- 
press grief  and  loneliness  it  broke  and  fell 
like  the  throbbing  and  murmuring  of  the 
waves  on  the  beach.  I  felt  the  profound 
human  sympathy  of  the  man,  the  largeness 
and  force  of  his  nature.  I  understood  the 
secret  of  the  perfection  of  his  lyrical  poems. 
Each  one  of  them  had  been  composed  to  a 
distinct  music  of  its  own.  He  had  heard 
it  in  his  mind  before  he  had  put  it  into 
words.      I  saw  also  why  his  character-pieces 


THE  PRINCESS  AND   MAUD.  123 

were  so  strong.  He  bad  been  absorbed  in 
each  one  of  them.  The  living  personality 
had  been  real  to  him,  and  he  had  entered 
into  its  life. 

All  this  came  home  to  me  as  I  sat  in  the 
evening  twilight  in  the  study  at  Aldworth, 
and  listened  to  the  poet,  with  his  massive 
head  outlined  against  the  pale  glow  of  the 
candles,  his  dark,  dreamy  eyes  fixed  closely 
upon    the    book,  lifted    now  and   then    to 
mark  the  emphasis  of  a  word  or  the  close 
of  a  forceful. line,  and  his  old  voice  ringing  I 
with  all  the  passion  of  youth,  as  he  chanted    j 
the  varying  cantos  of  the  lyrical  drama  of    I 
Maud.     I  understood  why  he  loved  it,  and 
what  it  meant.      I  felt  that,  although  it  may 
not  be  ranked  with  his  greatest  works,  like 
In  Memoriam  and  the  Idylls  of  the  King,  it 
is  certainly  one  of  his  most  original  poems. 

You   must  remember   always,  in  leading 
it,  what  it  is  meant  to  be  —  a  lyrical  drama,    vl 
It  shows  the  unfolding  of   a  lonely,  morbid 
soul,  touched  with  inherited  madness,  under 
the  influence  of  a  pure  and  passionate  love. 
Each    lyric    is    meant    to    express    a    new   -./ 
moment  in  this  process.     The  things  which     ' 
seem  like  faults  belong  not  so  much  to  the 
poem  as  to  the  character  oi  the  hero. 


124  THE  POETRY   OF   TENNYSON. 

He  is  wrong,  of  course,  in  much  that  he 
says.  If  he  had  been  always  wise  and  just 
he  would  not  have  been  himself.  He  be- 
gins with  a  false  comparison — u  blood -red 
heath."  There  is  no  such  thing  in  nature  ; 
but  he  sees  the  heather  tinged  like  blood 
because  his  mind  has  been  disordered  and 
his  sight  discoloured  by  the  tragedy  of  hio 
youth.  He  is  wrong  in  thinking  that  war 
will  transform  the  cheating  tradesman  into 
a  great-souled  hero,  or  that  it  will  sweep 
aw.vy  the  dishonesties  and  lessen  the  miser- 
ies of  humanity.  The  history  of  the  Crimea 
proves  his  error.  But  this  very  delusion  is 
natural  to  him  :  it  is  in  keeping  with  his 
morbid,  melancholy,  impulsive  character  to 
seek  a  cure  for  the  evils  of  peace  in  the 
horrors  of  war. 

He  is  wild  and  excessive,  of  course,  in 
his  railings  and  complainings.  He  takes 
offense  at  fancied  slights,  reviles  those 
whom  he  dislikes,  magnifies  trifles,  is  sub- 
ject to  hallucinations,  hears  his  name 
called  in  the  corners  of  his  lonely  house, 
fancies  that  all  the  world  is  against  him. 
He  is  not  always  noble  even  in  the  expres- 
sion of  his  love  at  first.  He,  sometimes 
strikes  a  false  note  and  strains  the  tone  of 


THE  PRINCESS  AND  MAUD.  125 

passion  until  it  is  almost  hysterical.  There 
is  at  least  one  passage  in  which  he  sings 
absurdly  of  trifles,  and  becomes,  as  he  him- 
self feared  that  he  would,  "  fantastically 
merry."  But  all  this  is  just  what  such  a 
man  would  do  in  such  a  case.  The  psycho- 
logical study  is  perfect,  from  the  first  out- 
burst of  moody  rage  in  the  opening  canto, 
through  the  unconscious  struggle  against 
love  and  the  exuberant  joy  which  follows 
its  entrance  into  his  heart  and  the  blank' 
despair  which  settles  upon  him  when  it  is 
lost,  down  to  the  wonderful  picture  of  real 
madness  with  which  the  second  part  closes. 
It  is  as  true  as  truth  itself.  But  what  is  there 
in  the  story  to  make  it  worth  the  telling? 
What  elements  of  beauty  has  the  poet  con- 
ferred upon  it  ?  What  has  he  given  to  this 
strange  and  wayward  hero  to  redeem  him  ? 
Three  gifts. 

(FirsE}\he  has  the  gift  of  exquisite,  deli-  (  ij 
cate,  sensitive  perception.  He  sees  and  f 
hears  the  wonderful,  beautiful  things  which 
only  the  poet  can  see  and  hear.  He  knows 
that  the  underside  of  the  English  daisy  is 
pink,  and  when  Maud  passes  homeward 
through  the  fields  he  can  trace  her  path  by 
the  upturned  flowers, — 


i 


126         TEE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

,    For  her  feet  have  touch'd  the  meadows 
V«     Aud  left  the  daisies  rosy. 

He  sees  how  the  tops  of  the  trees  on  a 
windy  morning  are  first  bowed  by  the  wind 
and  then  tossed  from  side  to  side,  — 

Caught  and  cuff'd  by  the  gale. 

He  has  noted  the  colour  of  the  red  buds  on 
the  lime-tree  in  the  spring,  and  how  the 
green  leaves  burst  through  them, — 

A  million  emeralds  break  from  the  ruby-budded  lime. 

He  has  heard  the  "  broad-flung  shipwreck- 
ing roar  of  the  tide  "  and  the  sharp 
"  scream "  of  the  pebbles  on  the  beach 
dragged  down  by  the  receding  wave.  He 
has  listened  to  the  birds  that  seem  to  be 
calling,  "Maud,  Maud,  Maud,  Maud,"  — 
and  he  knows  perfectly  well  that  they  are 
not  nightingales,  but  rooks,  flying  to  their 
nests  in  the  tall  trees  around  the  Hall. 
The  poem  is  rich  in  observations  of  nature. 
The  second  gift  which  is  bestowed  upon 
the  hero  of  Maud  is  the  power  of  gofigj 
And  in  bestowing  this  the  poet  has  proved 
the  fineness  and  subtlety  of  his  knowledge. 
For  it  is  precisely  this  gift  of  song  which 
sometimes  descends  upon  a  wayward,  un- 


THE  PRINCESS  AND   MAUD.  127 

sound  life,  —  as  it  did  upon  Shelley's,  — and 
draws  from  it  tones  of  ravishing  sweetness  ; 
not  harmonies,  for  harmony  belongs  to  the 
broader,  saner  mind,  but  melodies,  which 
catch  the  heart  and  linger  in  the  memory 
forever.  Strains  of  this  music  come  to  us 
from  Maud:  the  song  of  triumphant  love, — 

I  have  led  her  home,  my  love,  my  only  friend. 
There  is  none  like  her,  none, — 

the  nocturne  that  rises  like  the  breath  of 
passion  from  among  the  flowers,  — 
Come  into  the  garden,  Maud,  — 

and  the  lament,  — 

O  that  *t  were  possible. 

These  lyrics  are  magical,  unforgetable ; 
they_give  aii  immortal  beauty  to  the  poem. 

The  third  gift,  and  the  greatest,  which 
belongs  to  the  hero  of  Maud,  is  the  capacity 
for  intense,  absorbing,  ennobling  love.  It  is 
this  that  makes  Maud  love  him,  and  saves 
him  from  himself,  and  brings  him  out  at 
last  from  the  wreck  of  his  life,  a  man 
who  has  awaked  to  the  nobler  mind  and 
knows  — 

It  is  better  to  fight  for  the  good  than  rail  at  the  ill. 

How  clearly  this  awakening  is  traced 
through    the    poem  I      His   love  is   tinged 


t 


128  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

with  selfishness  at  first.  He  thinks  of  the 
smile  of  Maud  as  the  charm  which  is  to 
make  the  world  sweet  to  him  ;  he  says : 

Then  let  come  what  come  may 
To  a  life  that  has  been  so  sad, 
I  shall  have  had  my  day. 

But  unconsciously  it  purifies  itself.  He 
looks  up  at  the  stars  and  says :  — 

But  now  sh<ne  on,  and  what  care  I, 

Who  in  this  stormy  gulf  have  found  a  pearl 

The  countercharm  of  space  and  hollow  sky, 

And  do  accept  my  madness,  and  would  die 

To  save  from  some  slight  shame  one  simple  girl. 

And  at  last,  when  his  own  fault  has  de- 
stroyed his  happiness  and  divided  him  from 
her  forever,  his  love  does  not  perish,  but 
triumphs  over  the  selfishness  of  grief. 

Comfort  her,  comfort  her,  all  things  good, 

While  I  am  over  the  sea  I 

Let  me  and  my  passionate  love  go  by, 

But  speak  to  her  all  things  holy  and  high, 

Whatever  happen  to  me ! 

Me  and  my  harmful  love  go  by ; 

But  come  to  her  waking,  find  her  asleep, 

Powers  of  the  height,  Powers  of  the  deep, 

And  comfort  her  tho'  I  die. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  Maud.  Love  is  the 
power  that  redeems  from  self. 


IN  MEMORTAM. 


IN   MEMORIAM. 

Many  beautiful  poems,  and  some  so 
noble  that  they  are  forever  illustrious,  have 
blossomed  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death.  But  among  them  all  none  is  more 
rich  in  significance,  more  perfect  in  beauty 
of  form  and  spirit,  or  more  luminous  with 
the  triumph  of  light  and  love  over  dark- 
ness and  mortality,  than  In  Memoriam,  the 
greatest  of  English  elegies. 

How  splendid  is  the  poetic  company  in 
which  it  stands  !  Milton's  stately  and  sol- 
emn lament  for  Lycidas  ;  Gray's  pure  and 
faultless  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard ; 
Shelley's  musical  and  mournful  Adona'is ; 
Matthew  Arnold's  pensive  Thyrsis,  and  his 
deeper  Lines  at  Sunset  in  Rugby  Chapel; 
Emerson's  profound,  passionate,  lovely 
Threnody  on  the  death  of  his  little  son, — 
these  all  belong  to  the  high  order  of  poetry 
which  lives,  and  these  all  unfolded  from  the 
heart  of  man  at  the  touch  of  death. 


132         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

In  Memoriam  differs  from  the  others  in 
two  things:  first,  in  the  fulness  and  inti- 
macy with  which  it  discloses  the  personal 
relations  and  the  personal  loss  and  sorrow 
out  of  which  it  grew ;  and,  second,  in  the 
breadth  and  thoroughness  with  which  it 
enters  into  the  great  questions  of  philoso- 
phy and  religion  that  rise  out  of  the  experi- 
ence of  bereavement.  (-  It  has,  therefore,  a 
twofold  character;  it  is  a  glorious  monu- 
ment to  the  memory  of  a  friend,  and  it  is 
the  great  English  classic  on  the  love  of 
immortality  and  the  immortality  of  love. 

It  was  published  in  1850,  and  the  title- 
page  bore  no  name,  either  of  the  author  or 
of  the  person  to  whom  it  was  dedicated. 
But  every  one  knew  that  it  was  written  by 
Alfred  Tennyson  in  memory  of  his  friend 
Arthur  Henry  Hallam.  Their  friendship 
was  formed  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
where  they  had  entered  as  students  in  Oc- 
tober, 1828,  Tennyson  being  then  in  his 
twentieth  year.  Hallam,  who  was  a  year 
and  a  half  younger,  was  the  son  of  Henry 
Hallam,  the  historian,  and  had  already  dis- 
tinguished himself  among  his  contempora- 
ries by  the  beauty  and  force  of  his  character 
and  the  brilliancy  of  his  attainments,  espe- 


in  memortaM.  133 

daily  in  the  study  of  modern  poetry  and 
art,  in  philosophy,  and  in  argumentative 
discussion.  He  did  not  incline  strongly  to 
the  study  of  the  classics,  and  toward  math- 
ematics, the  favourite  discipline  of  Cam- 
bridge, he  was  almost  entirely  indifferent. 
These  mental  indispositions,  together  with 
a  lack  of  power  or  willingness  to  retain  in 
his  memory  the  mass  of  uninteresting  facts 
and  dates  which  are  required  for  success 
in  examinations,  and  a  delicacy  of  health 
which  at  times  made  him  subject  to  serious 
depression  of  spirits,  unfitted  him  to  con- 
tend for  university  honours.  But  he  was 
a  natural  leader  among  the  high-spirited 
youth  who  found  in  the  reality  of  college 
life  and  the  freedom  of  intellectual  inter- 
course a  deeper  and  broader  education  than 
the  routine  of  the  class-room  could  give. 
There  was  a  debating  society  in  Cam- 
bridge at  this  time,  familiarly  called  "  The 
Twelve  Apostles,"  which  included  such  men 
of  promise  as  Richard  Monckton  Milnes 
(afterward  Lord  Houghton),  W.  H.  Thomp- 
son (afterward  Master  of  Trinity),  Richard 
Chevenix  Trench  (afterward  Archbishop  of 
Dublin),  Henry  Alford  (afterward  Dean  of 
Canterbury),  Frederick  Denison  Maurice, 


134         THE  POETRY  Of  TENNYSON. 

W.  H.  Brookfield,  James  Spedding,  Ed- 
mund Lushington,  and  G.  S.  Venables.  In 
this  society  of  kindling  genius,  Hallain 
shone  with  a  singular  lustre,  not  only  by 
reason  of  the  depth  and  clearness  of  his 
thought  and  the  masterful  vigour  of  his 
expression,  but  also  because  of  the  sweet- 
ness and  purity  of  his  character  and  the 
sincerity  of  his  religious  spirit,  strengthened 
and  ennobled  by  conflict  with  honest  doubt. 
One  of  his  friends  wrote  of  him :  "  I  have 
met  with  no  man  his  superior  in  metaphysi- 
cal subtlety ;  no  man  his  equal  as  a  philo- 
sophical critic  on  works  of  taste  ;  no  man 
whose  views  on  all  subjects  connected  with 
the  duties  and  dignities  of  humanity  were 
more  large,  more  generous  and  enlight- 
ened." Mr.  Gladstone,  recalling  his  in- 
timacy with  Hallam  at  Eton,  bears  witness 
to  "his  unparalleled  endowments  and  his 
deep,  enthusiastic  affections,  both  religious 
and  human." 

It  was  by  such  qualities  that  Alfred  Ten- 
nyson was  drawn  to  Arthur  Hallam ;  and 
although,  or  perhaps  because,  they  were 
unlike  in  many  things,  their  minds  and 
hearts  were  wedded  in  a  friendship  which 
was  closer  than  brotherhood,  and  in  which 


IN  MEMORIAM.  135 

Hallam's  influence  was  the  stronger  and 
more  masculine  element,  so  that  Tennyson 
spoke  of  himself  as  "  widowed "  by  his 
loss. 

The  comradeship  of  the  two  men  was  of 
the  most  intimate  nature.  They  were  to- 
gether in  study  and  in  recreation,  at  home 
and  abroad.  '  In  1829  they  were  friendly 
rivals  for  the  medal  in  English  verse,  which 
Tennyson  won  with  his  poem  Timbuctoo. 
In  1830  they  made  an  excursion  together 
to  the  Pyrenees,  carrying  money  and  letters 
of  encouragement  to  the  Spanish  revolu- 
tionists. This  visit  is  alluded  to  in  the 
poem  called  In  the  Valley  of  Cauteretz. 
About  this  time  they  were  planning  to 
bring  out  a  volume  of  poems  in  company, 
after  the  example  of  Wordsworth  and  Cole- 
ridge ;  but  by  the  wise  advice  of  Hallam's 
father  this  project  was  abandoned,  and  Ten- 
nyson's slender  volume  of  Poems,  Chiefly 
Lyrical  appeared  alone.  Hallam's  review 
of  this  book  in  The  Englishman's  Magazine 
for  August,  1831,  was  one  of  the  very  earli- 
est recognitions  that  a  new  light  had  risen 
in  English  poetry.     He  said :  — 

"  Mr.  Tennyson  belongs  decidedly  to  the 
class  we  have  already  described  as  Poets  of 


136         THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

Sensation.  He  sees  all  the  forms  of  nature 
with  the  eruditus  oculus,  and  his  ear  has  a 
fairy  fineness.  There  is  a  strange  earnest- 
ness in  his  worship  of  beauty,  which  throws 
a  charm  over  his  impassioned  song,  more 
easily  felt  than  described,  and  not  to  be 
escaped  by  those  who  have  once  felt  it.  .  .  . 
We  have  remarked  five  distinctive  excel- 
lencies of  his  own  manner.  First,  his  lux- 
uriance of  imagination,  and  at  the  same 
time  his  control  over  it.  Secondly,  his 
power  of  embodying  himself  in  ideal  char- 
acters, or  rather  moods  of  character,  with 
such  extreme  accuracy  of  adjustment  that 
the  circumstances  of  the  narrative  seem  to 
have  a  natural  correspondence  with  the 
predominant  feeling,  and,  as  it  were,  to 
be  evolved  from  it  by  assimilative  force. 
Thirdly,  his  vivid,  picturesque  delineation 
of  objects,  and  the  peculiar  skill  with  which 
he  holds  all  of  them  fused,  to  borrow  a 
metaphor  from  science,  in  a  medium  of 
strong  emotion.  Fourthly,  the  variety  of  his 
lyrical  measures,  and  exquisite  modulation 
of  harmonious  sounds  and  cadences  to  the 
swell  and  fall  of  the  feelings  expressed. 
Fifthly,  the  elevated  habits  of  thought  im- 
plied in  these  compositions,  and  imparting 


IN  MEMORfAM.  137 

a  mellow  soberness  of  tone,  more  impressive 
to  our  minds  than  if  the  author  had  drawn 
up  a  set  of  opinions  in  verse,  and  sought 
to  instruct  the  understanding  rather  than 
to  communicate  the  love  of  beauty  to  the 
heart." 

This  may  still  stand,  among  later  and 
more  searching  criticisms,  as  an  intelli- 
gent and  suggestive  appreciation  of  the 
sources  of  Tennyson's  poetical  charm  and 
power. 

M  my  allusions  to  incidents  in  Hallain's 
brief  life  may  be  discovered  in  In  Memo- 
riam.  He  was  a  frequent  visitor  in  the 
home  of  the  Tennysons  at  Somersby,  in 
Lincolnshire,  coming  in  winter  and  summer 
holidays.  In  1832,  the  year  of  his  grada- 
tion at  Cambridge,  he  was  engaged  to  Miss 
Emily  Tennyson,  the  poet's  sister.  His 
home  was  with  his  father  in  Wimpole 
Street,  called  the  longest  street  in  London ; 
and  on  leaving  college  he  began  the  study 
of  law,  looking  forward  to  the  higher  life 
of  public  service,  in  which  so  many  of 
England's  best  young  men  find  their  mis- 
sion. In  August,  1833,  he  went  with  his 
father  to  Germany.  On  the  way  from 
Pesth   to   Vienna   he  was   exposed  to   in- 


138         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

clement  weather  and  contracted  an  inter- 
mittent fever.  The  symptoms  were  slight 
and  seemed  to  be  abating,  but  the  natural 
frailty  of  his  constitution  involved  unfore- 
seen danger.  There  was  a  weakness  of 
the  heart  which  the  strength  of  the  spirit 
concealed.  On  the  15th  of  September, 
while  he  seemed  to  be  reposing  quietly, 
the  silver  cord  was  loosed  and  the  golden 
bowl  was  broken. 

In  Vienna's  fatal  walls 
God's  finger  touch'd  him,  and  he  slept 

The  sharp  and  overwhelming  shock  of 
losing  such  a  friend  suddenly,  irretrieva- 
bly, in  absence,  with  no  opportunity  of 
speaking  a  word  of  love  and  farewell, 
brought  Tennyson  face  to  face  with  the 
intense  and  inexorable  reality  of  death  — 
the  great  mystery  which  must  either 
darken  all  life  and  quench  the  springs  of 
poesy,  or  open  a  new  world  of  victory  to 
the  spirit,  and  refresh  it  with  deeper  and 
never-failing  fountains  of  inspiration. 

In  Memoriam  begins  with  the  confession 
of  this  dreadful  sense  of  loss,  and  the  firm 
resolve  to  hold  fast  the  memory  of  bis 
grief,  even  though  he  doubts  whether  he 
can 


1 


> 


IN  ME  MORI  AM.  139 

reach  a  hand  through  time  to  catch 
The  far-off  interest  of  tears. 

The  arrangement  of  the  poem  does  not 
follow  strictly  the  order  of  logic  or  the 
order  of  time.  It  was  not  written  con- 
secutively, but  at  intervals,  and  the  period 
of  its  composition  extends  over  at  least 
sixteen  years.  The  Epithalamium  with 
which  it  closes  was  made  in  1842,  the 
date  of  the  marriage  of  Miss  Cecilia  Ten- 
nyson to  Edmund  Law  Lushington,  the 
friend  addressed  in  the  eighty-fifth  canto. 
The  Proem,  "  Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal 
Love,"  was  added  in  1849,  to  sum  up  and 
express  the  final  significance  of  the  whole 
lyrical  epic  of  the  inner  life  which  had 
grown  so  wonderfully  through  these  long 
years  of  spiritual  experience.  "  The  gen- 
eral way  of  its  being  written,"  said  Tenny- 
son, "  was  so  queer  that  if  there  were  a 
blank  space  I  would  put  in  a  poem."  And 
yet  there  is  a  profound  coherence  in  the 
series  of  separate  _ly rics^  and  a  clear  ad- 
vance toward  a  definite  goal  of  thought 
and  feeling  can  be  traced  through  the 
freedom  of  structure  which  characterizes 
the  poem. 

The  first  division  of  the  poem,  from  the 


140         THE  POETRY   OF  T£NNYSOX. 

first  to  the  eighth  canto  (I  follow  here  the 
grouping  of  the  sections  which  was  made 
by  Tennyson  himself),  moves  with  the 
natural  uncertainty  of  a  lonely  and  sor- 
rowful heart ;  questioning  whether  it  is 
possible  or  wise  to  hold  fast  to  sorrow  ; 
questioning  whether  it  be  not  half  a  sin 
to  try  to  put  such  a  grief  into  words  * 
questioning  whether  the  writing  of  a  me- 
morial poem  can  be  anything  more  than  a 

sad,  mechanic  exercise, 
Lik«  dull  narcotics,  numbing  pain. 

But  the  conclusion  is  that,  since  the  lost 
friend  loved  the  poet's  verse,  the  poem 
shall  be  written  for  his  sake  and  conse- 
crated to  his  memory,  like  a  flower  planted 
on  a  tomb,  to  live  or  die. 

The  second  division,  beginning  with  the 
I  ninth  canto  and  closing  with  the  nine- 
'  teenth,  describes  in  lyrics  of  wondrous 
beauty  the  home-bringing  oT  Arthur's  body 
in  a  ship  from  Italy,  and  the  burial  in 
Clevedon  Church,  which  stands  on  a  soli- 
tary hill  overlooking  the  Bristol  Channel. 
This  took  place  on  January  3,  1834.  A 
calmer,  stronger,  steadier  spirit  now  enters 
into  the  poem,  and  from  this  point  it 
moves  forward  with  ever  deepening  power 


IN  ME  MORI  AM.  141 

and  beauty,  to  pay  its  rich  tribute  to  the 
immortal  meaning  of  friendship,  and  to 
pour  its  triumphant  light  through  the 
shadows  of  the  grave. 

The  third  division,  beginning  with  the 
twentieth  canto,  returns  again  to  the  sub- 
ject of  personal  bereavement  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  expressing  it  in  poetry.  It 
speaks  of  the  necessity  in  the  poet's  heart 
for  finding  such  an  expression,  which  is 
as  natural  as  song  is  to  the  bird.  He 
turns  back  to  trace  the  pathway  of  friend- 
ship, and  remembers  how  love  made  it  fair 
and  sweet,  doubling  all  joy  and  dividing 
all  pain.  That  companionship  is  now 
broken  and  the  way  is  dreary.  The  love 
to  which  he  longs  to  prove  himself  still 
loyal  is  now  the  minister  of  lonely  sorrow. 
And  yet  the  very  capacity  for  such  suffer- 
ing is  better  than  the  selfish  placidity  of 
the  loveless  life : 

'T  is  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 

The  fourth  division  opens,  in  the  twenty- 
eighth  canto,  with  a  Christmas  poem.  The 
poet  wonders  how  it  is  possible  to  keep  the 
joyous  household  festival  under  the  shadow 


142  THE  POETRY  OF    TENNYSON. 

of  this  great  loss.  But  through  the  sad- 
dened and  half-hearted  merry-making  there 
steals  at  last,  in  the  silence,  the  sense  that 
those  who  have  left  the  happy  circle  still 
live  and  are  unchanged  in  sympathy  and 
love.  From  the  darkness  of  Christmas 
eve  rises  the  prayer  for  the  dawning  of 
Christmas  day  and 

The  light  that  shone  when  Hope  was  horn. 

Led  by  this  thought,  the  poet  turns  to 
the  story  of  Lazarus,  and  to  Mary's  faith 
in  Him  who  was  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Life.  Such  a  faith  is  so  pure  and  sacred 
that  it  demands  the  reverence  even  of 
those  who  do  not  share  it.  For  what 
would  our  existence  be  worth  without 
immortality?  Effort  and  patience  would 
be  vain.  It  would  be  better  to  drop  at 
once  into  darkness.  Love  itself  would  be 
changed  and  degraded  if  we  knew  that 
death  was  the  end  of  everything.  These 
immortal  instincts  of  our  manhood  came 
to  their  perfect  expression  in  the  life 
and  teachings  of  Christ.  And  though  the 
poet's  utterance  of  these  divine  things  be 
but  earthly  and  imperfect,  at  least  it  is 
a  true  tribute  to  the  friend  who  spoke  of 


IN  MEMORIAM.  143 

them  so  often.  Thus  he  stands  again  be- 
side the  funereal  yew-tree,  of  which  he 
wrote,  in  the  second  canto,  that  it  never 
blossomed,  and  sees  that,  after  all,  it  has 
a  season  of  bloom,  in  which  the  dust  of 
tiny  flowers  rises  from  it  in  living  smoke. 
Even  so  his  thoughts  of  death  are  now 
blossoming  in  thoughts  of  a  higher  life 
into  which  his  friend  has  entered  — 
thoughts  of  larger  powers  and  nobler 
duties  in  the  heavenly  existence.  But 
may  not  this  mysterious  and  sudden  ad- 
vancement divide  their  friendship?  No; 
for  if  the  lost  friend  is  moving  onward  so 
swiftly  now,  he  will  be  all  the  better  fitted 
to  be  a  teacher  and  helper  when  their  in- 
tercourse is  renewed ;  but  if  death  should 
prove  to  be  "  an  intervital  trance,"  then 
when  he  awakens  the  old  love  will  awaken 
with  him.  From  this  assurance  the  poet 
passes  to  wondering  thoughts  of  the  man- 
ner of  life  of  "  the  happy  dead,"  and  rises 
to  the  conviction  that  it  must  include  an 
unchanged  personal  identity  and  a  certain 
personal  recognition  and  fellowship.  This 
is  not  uttered  by  way  of  argument,  but 
only  with  the  brevity  and  simplicity  of 
songs  which  move  like  swallows  over  the 
depth  of  grief, 


144         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Whose  muffled  motions  blindly  drown 
The  bases  of  my  life  in  tears. 

The  fifth  division  of  the  poem,  in  the 
fiftieth  canto,  begins  with  a  prayer  that 
his  unseen  friend  may  be  near  him  in  the 
hours  of  gloom  and  pain  and  doubt  and 
death.  Such  a  presence  would  bring  with  it 
a  serene  sympathy  and  allowance  for  mor- 
tal ignorance  and  weakness  and  imperfec- 
tion. For  doubtless  this  lower  life  of  ours 
is  a  process  of  discipline  and  education  for 
something  better.  Good  must  be  the  final 
goal  of  ill.  We  feel  this  but  dimly  and 
blindly  ;  our  expression  of  it  is  like  the 
cry  of  a  child  in  the  night ;  but  at  least 
the  desire  that  it  may  be  true  comes  from 
that  which  is  most  God-like  in  our  souls. 
Can  it  be  that  God  and  Nature  are  at 
strife?  Is  it  possible  that  all  the  hopes 
and  prayers  and  aspirations  of  humanity 
are  vain  dreams,  and  that  the  last  and 
highest  work  of  creation  must  crumble 
utterly  into  dust?  This  would  be  the 
very  mockery  of  reason.  And  yet  the 
sure  answer  is  not  found  ;  it  lies  behind 
the  veil.  So  the  poet  turns  away,  think- 
ing to  close  his  song  with  a  last  word  of 
farewell  to  the  dead  ;  but  the  Muse  calls 


IX  ME  MORI  AM.  145 

him  to  abide  a  little  longer  with  his  sor- 
row, in  order  that  he  may  "  take  a  nobler 
leave." 

This  is  the  theme  with  which  the  sixth 
division  opens,  in  the  fifty-ninth  canto. 
The  poet  is  to  live  with  sorrow  as  a  wife, 
and  to  learn  from  her  all  that  she  has  to 
teach.  He  turns  again  to  the  thought  of 
the  strange  difference  in  wisdom  and  purity 
between  the  blessed  dead  and  the  living, 
and  finds  new  comfort  and  security  in  the 
thought  that  this  difference  cannot  destroy 
love.  He  thinks  of  the  tablet  to  Hallam's 
memory  in  Clevedon  Church,  silvered  by 
the  moonlight  or  glimmering  in  the  dawn. 
He  dreams  of  Hallam  over  and  over  again. 
Night  after  night  they  seem  to  walk  and 
talk  together,  as  they  did  on  their  tour 
in  the  Pyrenees. 

The  seventy-second  canto  opens  the 
seventh  division  of  the  poem  with  the  an- 
niversary of  Hallam's  death  —  an  autumnal 
dirge,  wild  and  dark,  followed  by  sad 
lyrics  which  ring  the  changes  on  the  per- 
ishableness  of  all  earthly  fame  and  beauty. 
But  now  the  Christmas-tide  returns  and 
brings  the  tender  household  joys.  This 
is  a  brighter  Christmas  than  the  last.     The 


146         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

thought  of  how  faithfully  and  nobly  Arthur 
would  have  borne  the  sorrow,  if  he  had 
been  the  one  to  be  left  while  his  friend 
was  taken,  calms  and  strengthens  the  poet's 
heart.  He  reconciles  himself  more  deeply 
with  death ;  learns  to  believe  that  it  has 
ripened  friendship  even  more  than  earthly 
intercourse  could  have  done ;  assures  him- 
self that  the  transplanted  life  is  still  bloom- 
ing and  bearing  richer  fruit;  and  at  last 
complains  only  because  death  has 

put  oar  lives  so  far  apart 
We  cannot  hear  each  other  speak. 

Now  the  spring  comes,  renewing  the 
face  of  the  earth ;  and  with  it  comes  a 
new  tenderness  and  sweetness  into  the 
poet's  song.  There  is  a  pathetic  vision 
of  all  the  domestic  joys  that  might  have 
been  centred  about  Arthur's  life  if  it  had 
been  spared,  and  of  the  calm  harmony  of 
death  if  the  two  friends  could  have  arrived 
together  at  the  blessed  goal, 

And  He  that  died  in  Holy  Land 
Would  reach  us  out  the  shining  hand, 
And  take  us  as  a  single  soul. 

This  vision  almost  disturbs  the  new 
peace  that  has  begun  in  the  poet's  heart ; 


IN  MEM OR I  AM.  147 

but  he  comes  back  again,  in  the  eighty- 
fifth  canto  (the  longest  in  the  poem,  and 
its  turning-point),  to  the  deep  and  unal- 
terable feeling  that  love  with  loss  is  better 
than  life  without  love.  Another  friend, 
the  same  who  was  afterward  to  be  mar- 
ried to  Tennyson's  sister,  has  asked  him 
whether  his  sorrow  has  darkened  his  faith 
and  made  him  incapable  of  friendship. 
The  answer  comes  from  the  inmost  depths 
of  the  soul ;  recalling  all  the  noble  and 
spiritual  influences  of  the  interrupted  com- 
radeship ;  confessing  that  it  still  abides 
and  works  as  a  potent,  strengthening  force 
in  his  life ;  and  seeking  for  the  coming 
years  a  new  friendship,  not  to  rival  the 
old,  nor  ever  to  supplant  it,  but  to  teach 
his  heart  still 

to  beat  in  time  with  one 
That  warms  another  living  breast. 

Now  the  glory  of  the  summer  earth 
kindles  the  poetic  fancy  once  more  to 
rapture ;  now  the  old  college  haunts  are 
revisited  and  the  joys  of  youth  live  again 
in  memory.  The  thought  of  Arthur's 
spiritual  presence  lends  a  new  and  loftier 
significance  to  these  common  delights, 
brings  more  sweetness  than  sadness,  makes 


148         THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

his  letters,  read  in  the  calm  summer  mid- 
night, seem  like  a  living  voice.  The 
remembrance  of  his  brave  conflict  with 
his  doubts  gives  encouragement  to  faith. 
Now  he  is  delivered  from  the  struggle ; 
he  has  attained  unto  knowledge  and  wis- 
dom :  but  the  poet,  still  lingering  among 
the  shadows  and  often  confused  by  them, 
holds  fast  to  the  spiritual  companionship : 

I  cannot  understand  :  I  love. 

The  eighth  division,  from  the  ninety- 
ninth  to  the  one  hundred  and  third  canto, 
opens  with  another  anniversary  of  Hallam's 
death,  which  brings  the  consoling  thought 
that,  since  grief  is  common,  sympathy 
must  be  world-wide.  The  old  home  at 
Somersby  is  now  to  be  forsaken,  and  the 
poet  takes  farewell  of  the  familiar  scenes 
in  lyrics  of  exquisite  beauty.  The  division 
endswifitr  a  mystical  dream,  in  which  he 
is  summoned  to  a  voyage  upon  the  sea  of 
eternity,  and  the  human  powers  and  tal- 
ents, in  the  guise  of  maidens  who  have 
served  him  in  this  life,  accompany  him 
still,  and  the  man  he  loved  appears  on  the 
ship  as  his  comrade. 

The  ninth  and  last  division  begins,  in 


IN  MEMORIAM.  149 

the  one  hundred  and  fourth  canto,  with 
the  return  of  another  Christmas  eve.  The 
Tennyson  family  had  removed  in  1837  to 
Beech  Hill  House,  and  now,  as  the  time 
draws  near  the  birth  of  Christ,  they  hear, 
not  the  fourfold  peal  of  bells  from  the  four 
hamlets  lying  around  the  rectory  at  Som- 
ersby,  but  a  single  peal  from  the  tower  of 
Waltham  Abbey,  dimly  seen  through  the 
mist  below  the  distant  hill.  It  is  a  strange, 
solemn,  silent  holiday  season ;  but  with 
the  ringing  of  the  bells  on  the  last  night 
of  the  old  year  there  comes  into  it  a  new, 
stirring  melody  of  faith,  of  hope,  of  high 
desire  and  victorious  trust.  This  is  a 
stronger,  loftier  song  than  the  poet  could 
ever  have  reached  before  grief  ennobled 
him  ;  and  from  this  he  rises  into  that 
splendid  series  of  lyrics  with  which  the 
poem  closes.  The  harmony  of  knowledge 
with  reverence ;  the  power  of  the  heart 
of  man  to  assert  its  rights  against  the 
colder  conclusions  of  mere  intellectual 
logic;  the  certainty  that  man  was  born 
to  enjoy  a  higher  life  than  the  physical, 
and  that  though  his  body  may  have  been 
developed  from  the  lower  animals,  his  soul 
may  work  itself  out  from  the  dominion  of 


150         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

the  passions  to  an  imperishable  liberty; 
the  supremacy  of  love;  the  sure  progress 
of  all  things  toward  a  hidden  goal  of  glory ; 
the  indomitable  courage  of  the  human  will, 
which  is  able  to  purify  our  deeds,  and  to 
trust, 

With  faith  that  comes  of  self-control, 
The  truths  that  never  can  be  proved 
Until  we  close  with  all  we  loved, 

And  all  we  flow  from,  soul  in  soul,  — 

these  are  the  mighty  and  exultant  chords 
with  which  the  poet  ends  his  music. 

In  Memoriam  is  a  dead-march,  but  it  is 
a  march  into  immortality. 

The  promise  of  Arthur  Hallam's  life 
was  not  broken.  Threescore  years  and 
ten  of  earthly  labour  could  hardly  have 
accomplished  anything  greater  than  the 
work  which  was  inspired  by  his  early 
death  and  consecrated  to  his  sacred  mem- 
ory. The  heart  of  man,  which  can  win 
such  victory  out  of  its  darkest  defeat  and 
reap  such  harvest  from  the  furrows  of  the 
grave,  is  neither  sprung  from  dost  nor 
destined  to  return  to  it.  A  poem  like  In 
Memoriam,  more  than  all  flowers  of  the 
returning  spring,  more  than  all  shining 
wings  that  flutter  above  the  ruins  of  the 


IN  MEMORIaM.  151 

chrysalis,  more  than  all  sculptured  tombs 
and  monuments  of  the  beloved  dead,  is 
the  living  evidence  and  intimation  of  an 
endless  life. 


IDYLLS   OF  THE   KING. 


IDYLLS   OF  THE   KING. 

i. 

The  history  of  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the 
King  is  one  of  the  most  curious  and  un- 
likely things  in  all  the  annals  of  literature. 
Famous  novels  have  so  often  been  written 
piecemeal  and  produced  in  parts,  that 
readers  of  fiction  have  made  a  necessity  of 
virtue,- and  learned  to  add  to  their  faith, 
patience.  But  that  a  great  poet  should  be 
engaged  with  his  largest  theme  for  more 

V  than  half  a  century ;  that  he  should  touch 
it  first  with  a  lyricj  then  with  an  epical 
fragment  and  two  more  lyrics ;  then  with 

'a  poem  which  was  suppressed  as  soon  as 
it  was  written ;  then  with  four  romantic 
idylls,  followed,  ten  years  later,  by  four 
others,  and  two  years  later  by  two  others, 
and  thirteen  years  later  by  yet  another 
idyll,  which  is  to  bo  placed,  not  before  or 
after  the  rest,  but  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
cycle ;  that  he  should  begin  with  the  end, 


156  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

and  continue  with  the  beginning,  and  end 
with  the  middle  of  the  story,  and  produce 
at  last  a  poem  which  certainly  has  more 
epical  grandeur  than  anything  that  has  been 
made  in  English  since  Milton  died,  is  a 
tiling. so  marvellous  that  no  man  would 
credit  it  save  at  the  sword's  point  of  fact. 
And  yet  this  is  the  exact  record  of  Tenny- 
son's dealing  with  the  Arthurian  legend. 

The  Lady  of  Shalott,  that  dreamlike 
foreshadowing  of  the  story  of  Maine,  was 
published  in  1832 ;  Sir  Galahad  and  Sir 
Lancelot  and  Queen  Guinevere  in  1842. 
Underneath  their  smooth  music  and  dainty 
form  they  hide  the  deeper  conceptions  of 
character  and  life  which  the  poet  after- 
wards worked  out  more  clearly  and  fully. 
They  compare  with  the  Idylls  as  a  cameo 
with  a  statue.  But  the  germ  of  the  whole 
story  of  the  fall  of  the  Round  Table  lies  in 
this  description  of  Guinevere  :  — 

She  looked  so  lovely,  as  she  swayed 
The  rein  with  dainty  finger-tipa, 
A  man  had  given  all  other  bliss, 
And  all  his  worldly  worth  for  this, 
To  waste  his  whole  heart  in  one  kiss 
Upon  her  perfect  lips. 

Morte  a" Arthur  was  printed  in  the  same 
volume  and  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  157 

manner  of  treatment,  not  lyrical,  but  epical. 
It  is  worth  while  to  notice  the  peculiar 
way  in  which  it  is  introduced.  A  brief 
prelude,  in  Tennyson's  conversational  style, 
states  the  poem  is  a  fragment  of  an  Epic  of 
King  Arthur,  which  had  contained  twelve 
cantos,  but  which  the  poet,  being  discon- 
tented with  their  antiquated  style,  and  re- 
garding them  as 

Faint  Homeric  echoes,  nothing  worth, 

had  determined  to  burn.  This  one  book 
had  been  picked  from  the  hearth  by  a  friend, 
and  was  the  sole  relic  of  the  conflagration. 
I  do  not  imagine  that  we  are  to  interpret 
this  preface  so  literally  as  to  conclude  that 
Tennyson  had  actually  written  and  de- 
stroyed eleven  other  books  upon  this  sub- 
ject ;  for  though  he  has  exercised  a  larger 
wisdom  of  suppression  in  regard  to  his  imma- 
ture work  than  almost  any  other  poet,  such 
a  wholesale  consumption  of  his  offspring 
would  have  an  almost  Saturnine  touch 
about  it.  But  we  may  certainly  infer  that 
he  had  contemplated  the  idea  of  an  Arthu- 
rian epic,  and  had  abandoned  it  after  severe 
labour  as  impracticable,  and  that  he  had 
intended  not  to   conclude   the  poem  with 


158  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

the  death  of  Arthur,  but  to  follow  it  with 
a  sequel ;  for  we  must  observe  the  fact, 
which  has  hitherto  escaped  the  notice  of 
the  critics,  that  this  rescued  fragment  was 
not  the  twelfth  but  the  eleventh  canto  in 
the  original  design.  We  cannot  help  won- 
dering what  the  conclusion  would  have  been 
if  this  first  plan  had  been  carried  out.  Per- 
haps some  vision  of  the  island  valley  of 
Avilion ;  perhaps  some  description  of  the 
return  of  the  King  in  modern  guise  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  order  of  chivalry ;  but 
whatever  it  might  have  been  we  can  hardly 
regret  its  loss,  for  it  is  evident  now  that 
the  Morte  oT Arthur  forms  the  true  and  in- 
evitable close  of  the  story. 

How  long  the  poet  held  to  his  decision 
of  abandoning  the  subject,  we  cannot  tell. 
The  first  sign  that  he  had  begun  to  work 
at  it  again  was  in  1857,  when  he  printed 
a  poem  called  Enid  and  Nimue ;  or,  The 
True  and  the  False.  •  This  does  not  seem 
to  have  satisfied  his  fastidious  taste,  for  it 
was  never  published,  though  a  few  copies 
are  said  to  be  extant  in  private  hands. 

In  June,  1858,  Clough  "heard  Tenny- 
son read  a  third  Arthur  poem,  —  the  de- 
tection of  Guinevere  and  the  last  interview 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  159 

with  Arthur."  In  1859  appeared  the  first 
volume,  entitled  Idylh  of  the  King,  with 
a  motto  from  the  old  chronicle  of  Joseph 
of  Exeter, —  "  Flos  regum  Arthurus."  The 
book  contained  four  idylls:  Enid,  Vivien, 
Elaine,  and  Guinevere.  Enid  has  since 
been  divided  into  The  Marriage  of  Geraint; 
and  Greraint  and  Enid.  This  first  volume, 
therefore,  contained  the  third,  fourth,  sixth, 
seventh,  and  eleventh  idylls. 

In  1862  there  was  a  new  edition,  dedi- 
cated to  the  Prince  Consort.  In  1870,  four 
more  idylls  were  published:  The  Coming 
of  Arthur,  The  Holy  Grail,  Pelleas  and 
Ettarre,  and  The  Passing  of  Arthur,  —  re- 
spectively the  first,  the  eighth,  the  ninth, 
and  the  twelfth,  in  the  order  as  it  stands 
now.  Of  this  volume,  forty  thousand  copies 
were  ordered  in  advance.  In  1872,  Gareth 
and  Lynette  and  The  Last  Tournament  were 
produced,  —  the  second  and  the  tenth  parts 
of  the  cycle.  In  1885,  the  volume  entitled 
Tiresias  and  Other  Poems  contained  an 
idyll  with  the  name  of  Balin  and  Balan, 
which  was  designated  in  a  note  as  "  an  in- 
troduction to  Merlin  and  Vivien"  and  thus 
takes  the  fifth  place  in  the  series. 

I  have  been  careful  in  tracing  the  order 


160  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

of  these  poems  because  it  seems  to  mc  that 
the  manner  of  their  production  throws 
light  upon  several  important  points.  Leav- 
ing out  of  view  the  Arthurian  lyrics,  as 
examples  of  a  style  of  treatment  which  was 
manifestly  too  light  for  the  subject ;  setting 
aside  also  the  first  draught  of  the  Morte 
d' Arthur,  as  a  fragment  whose  full  mean- 
ing and  value  the  poet  himself  did  not  rec- 
ognize until  later ;  we  observe  that  the 
significance  of  the  story  of  Arthur  and  the 
legends  that  clustered  about  it  was  clearly 
seen  by  Tennyson  somewhere  about  the 
year  1857,  and  that  he  then  began  to  work 
upon  it  with  a  large  and  positive  purpose. 
For  at  least  thirty  years  he  was  steadily 
labouring  to  give  it  form  and  substance  ; 
but  the  results  of  his  work  were  presented 
to  the  world  in  a  sequence  of  which  he 
alone  held  the  clue :  the  third  and  fourth, 
the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eleventh,  the  first, 
the  eighth,  the  ninth,  the  twelfth,  the  sec- 
ond, the  tenth,  the  fifth,  —  such  was  the 
extraordinary  order  of  parts  in  which  this 
work  was   published. 

This  fact  will  account,  first  of  all,  for  the 
failure  of  the  public  to  estimate  the  poems 
in  their   right   relation  and  at  their   true 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  161 

worth.  Their  beauty  of  imagery  and  ver- 
sification was  at  once  acknowledged ;  but 
so  long  as  they  were  regarded  as  separate 
pictures,  so  long  as  their  succession  and 
the  connection  between  them  were  con- 
cealed, it  was  impossible  to  form  any  com- 
plete judgment  of  their  meaning  or  value. 
As  Wagner  said  of  his  Siegfried  :  "  It  can- 
not make  its  right  and  unquestionable  im- 
pression as  a  single  whole,  until  it  is  allotted 
its  necessary  place  in  the  complete  whole. 
Nothing  must  be  left  to  be  supplemented 
by  thought  or  reflection  :  every  reader  of 
unprejudiced  human  feeling  must  be  able 
to  comprehend  the  whole  through  his  artis- 
tic perceptions,  because  then  only  will  he 
be  able  rightly  to  understand  the  single 
incidents."  l 

In  the  second  place,  this  fact  makes  clear 
to  us  the  reason  and  justification  of  the  gen- 
eral title  which  Tennyson  has  given  to  these 
poems.  He  has  been  criticised  very  fre- 
quently for  calling  them  Idylls.  And  if  we 
hold  the  word  to  its  narrower  meaning, — 
"  a  short,  highly  wrought  poem  of  a  de- 
scriptive and  pastoral  character,"  —  it  cer- 
tainly seems  inappropriate.     But  if  we  go 

1  Wagner's  letter  to  Liszt,  November  20,  1851. 


162         THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

back  to  the  derivation  of  the  word,  and  re- 
member that  it  comes  from  elSos,  which 
means  not  merely  the  form,  the  figure,  tin 
appearance  of  anything,  but  more  particu- 
larly that  form  which  is  characteristic  and 
distinctive,  the  ideal  element,  correspond- 
ing to  the  Latin  species,  we  can  see  that 
Tennyson  was  justified  in  adapting  and 
using  it  for  his  purpose.  He  intended  to 
make  pictures,  highly  wrought,  carefully 
finished,  full  of  elaborate  and  significant  de 
tails.  But  each  one  of  these  pictures  was 
to  be  animated  with  an  idea,  clear,  definite, 
unmistakable.  It  was  to  make  a  form  ex- 
press a  soul.  It  was  to  present  a  type,  not 
separately,  but  in  relation  to  other  types. 
This  was  the  method  which  he  had  chosen. 
His  design  was  not  purely  classical,  nor 
purely  romantic,  but  something  between 
the  two,  like  the  Italian  Gothic  in  archi- 
tecture. He  did  not  propose  to  tell  a  sin- 
gle straightforward  story  for  the  sake  of 
the  story ;  nor  to  bring  together  in  one 
book  a  mass  of  disconnected  tales  and  le- 
gends^  each  of  which  might  just  as  well  have 
stood  alone.  He  proposed  to  group  about 
a  central  figure  a  number  of  other  figures, 
each  one  of  which  should  be  as  finished,  as 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  163 

complete,  as  expressive,  as  he  could  make 
it,  and  yet  none  of  which  could  be  clearly 
understood  except  as  it  stood  in  its  own 
place  in  the  circle.  For  this  kind  of  work 
he  needed  to  find  or  invent  a  name.  It 
may  be  that  the  word  "  Idylls  "  does  not 
perfectly  express  the  meaning.  But  at 
least  there  is  no  other  word  in  the  language 
which  comes  so  near  to  it. 

In  the  third  place,  now  that  we  see  the 
Idylls  all  together,  standing  in  their  proper 
order  and  relation,  now  that  we  perceive 
that  with  all  their  diversity  they  do  indeed 
belong  to  the  King,  and  revolve  about  him 
as  stars  about  a  central  sun,  we  are  able  to 
appreciate  the  force  and  grandeur  of  the 
poet's  creative  idea  which  could  sustain  and 
guide  him  through  such  long  and  intricate 
labour  and  produce  at  last,  from  an  appar- 
ent chaos  of  material,  an  harmonious  work 
of  art  of  a  new  order.  For  this  was  the 
defect,  hitherto,  of  the  romantic  writers, 
descending  by  ordinary  generation  from 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  —  that  their  work  had 
lacked  unity ;  it  was  confused,  fragmentary, 
inorganic.  And  this  was  the  defect,  hith- 
erto, of  the  classical  writers,  descending  by 
ordinary  generation  from  Alexander  Pope, 


164  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

—  that  their  work  had  lacked  life,  interest, 
colour,  detail.  But  Tennyson  has  suc- 
ceeded, at  least  better  than  any  other  Eng- 
lish poet,  in  fulfilling  the  prophecy  which 
Victor  Hugo  made  in  his  criticism  of  Quen- 
tin  Durward :  — 

"  Aprds  le  roman  pittoresque  mais  pro- 
sa'fque  de  Walter  Scott,  il  restera  un  autre 
roman  a  cre*er,  plus  beau  et  plus  complet 
encore  selon  nous.  C'est  le  roman  a  la  fois 
drame  et  e'pope'e,  pittoresque  mais  poetique, 
reel  mais  iddal,  vrai  mais  grand,  qui  en- 
chassera  Walter  Scott  dans  Homere." 


V 


II. 


The  material  which  Tennyson,  has  used 
for  his  poem  is  the  strange,  complex,  mys- 
tical story  of  King  Arthur  and  his  Round 
Table.  To  trace  the  origin  of  this  story 
would  lead  us  far  afield  and  entangle  us 
in  the  thickets  of  controversy  which  are 
full  of  thorns.  Whether  Arthur  was  a 
real  king  who  ruled  in  Britain  after  the 
departure  of  the  Romans,  and  founded  a 
new  order  of  chivalry,  and  defeated  the 
heathen  in  various  more  or  less  bloody 
battles,    as    Nennius    and  other    professed 


IDYLLS  OF   THE  KING.  165 

historians  have  related ;  or  whether  he 
was  merely  "  a  solar  myth,"  as  the  Vi- 
comte  de  la  V  ill e marque  has  suggested  ; 
whether  that  extremely  patriotic  Welsh- 
man, Geoffrey  _of_  Monmouth,  commonly 
called  "  the  veracious  Geoffrey,"  who 
wrote  in  1138  a  full  account  of  Arthur's 
glorious  achievements,  really  deserved  his 
name ;  or  whether  his  chronicle  was 
merely,  as  an  irreverent  Dutch  writer  has 
said,  "  a  great,  heavy,  long,  thick,  pal- 
pable, and  most  impudent  lie ; "  whether 
the  source  of  the  story  was  among  the 
misty  mountains  of  Wales  or  among  the 
castles  of  Brittany, — all  these  are  ques- 
tions which  lead  aside  from  the  purpose  of 
this  essay.  This  much  is  certain  :  in  the 
twelfth  century  the  name  of  King  Arthur 
had  come  to  stand  for  an  ideal  of  royal 
wisdom,  chivalric  virtue,  and  knightly 
prowess  which  was  recognized  alike  in 
England  and   France  and   Germany. 

His  story  was  told  again  and  again  by 
Trouv^re  and  Minnesinger  and  prose  ro- 
mancer. In  camp  and  court  and  cloister, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  the  Rhine,  the 
Thames,  men  and  women  listened  with 
delight  to  the  description  of  his  character 


166         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNTSOH. 

and  glorious  exploits.  A  vast  under- 
growth of  legends  sprang  up  about  him. 
The  older  story  of  Merlin  the  Enchanter; 
the  tragic  tale  of  Sir  Lancelot  and  his 
fatal  love ;  the  adventures  of  Sir  Tristram 
and  Sir  Gawain;  the  mystical  romance 
of  the  Saint  Graal,  with  its  twin  heroes 
of  purity,  Percivale  and  Galahad,  —  these 
and  many  other  tales  of  wonder  and  of 
woe,  of  amourous  devotion  and  fierce  con- 
flict and  celestial  vision,  were  woven  into 
the  Arthurian  tapestry.  It  extended  itself 
in  every  direction,  like  a  vast  forest ;  the 
paths  crossing  and  recrossing  each  other; 
the  same  characters  appearing  and  disap- 
pearing in  ever-changing  disguises ;  beau- 
teous ladies  and  valiant  knights  and 
wicked  magicians  and  pious  monks  coming 
and  going  as  if  there  were  no  end  of  them ; 
so  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  the 
modern  reader  to  trace  his  way  through 
the  confusion,  and  he  feels  like  the  trav- 
eller who  complained  that  he  "could  not 
see  the  wood  for  the  trees." 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  age  of  chiv- 
alry, in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, when  the  inventions  of  gunpowder 
and  printing  had  begun  to  create  a  new 


IDYLLS  OF  TEE  KING.  167 

order  of  things  in  Europe,  that  an  English 
knight,  Sir  Thomas  Mallory  by  name, 
conceived  the  idea  of  rewriting  the  Arthu- 
rian story  in  his  own  language,  and  gather- 
ing as  many  of  these  tangled  legends  as 
he  could  find  into  one  complete  and  con- 
nected narrative.  He  must  have  been  a 
man  of  genius,  for  his  book  was  more  than 
a  mere  compilation  from  the  French.  He 
not  only  succeeded  in  bringing  some  kind 
of  order  out  of  the  confusion ;  he  infused 
a  new  and  vigorous  life  into  the  ancient 
tales,  and  clothed  them  in  fine,  simple, 
sonorous  prose,  so  that  his  Morte  d' 'Arthur 
is  entitled  to  rank  among  the  best  things 
in  English  literature. 

William  Caxton,  the  printer,  was  one 
of  the  first  to  recognize  the  merits  of  the 
book,  and  issued  it  from  his  press  at  West- 
minster, in  1485,  with  a  delightful  pref- 
ace—  in  which  he  tells  what  he  thought 
of  the  story.  After  a  naive  and  intrepid 
defence  of  the  historical  reality  of  Arthur, 
which  he  evidently  thinks  it  would  be  as 
sacrilegious  to  doubt  as  to  question  the 
existence  of  Joshua,  or  King  David,  or 
Judas  Maccabeus,  he  goes  on  to  say: 
"Herein    may    be    seen    noble    chivalry, 


168  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

courtesy,  humanity,  friendliness,  hardiness, 
love,  friendship,  cowardice,  murder,  hate, 
virtue  and  sin.  Do  after  the  good  and 
leave  the  evil,  and  it  shall  bring  you  to 
good  fame  and  renommee.  And  for  to 
pass  the  time  this  book  shall  be  pleasant 
to  read  in,  but  for  to  give  faith  and  belief 
that  all  is  true  that  is  contained  herein, 
ye  be  at  your  liberty:  but  all  is  written 
for  our  doctrine,  and  for  to  beware  that 
we  fall  not  to  vice  nor  sin,  but  to  exercise 
and  follow  virtue,  by  the  which  we  may 
come  and  attain  to  good  fame  and  renown 
in  this  life,  and  after  this  short  and  transi- 
tory life  to  come  into  everlasting  bliss  in 
heaven ;  the  which  He  grant  us  that 
reign eth  in  heaven,  the  blessed  Trinity. 
Amen." 

This  pleasant  and  profitable  book  was 
for  several  generations  the  favourite  read- 
ing of  the  gentlemen  of  England.  After 
falling  into  comparative  obscurity  for  a 
while,  it  was  brought  back  into  notice  and 
favour  in  the  early  part  of  the  present 
century.  In  1816  two  new  editions  of  it 
were  published,  the  first  since  1634;  and 
in  the  following  year  another  edition  was 
brought   out,   with    an    introduction    and 


IDYLLS    OF  THE  KING.  169 

notes  by  Southey.  It  was  doubtless 
through  the  pages  of  Mallory  that  Tenny- 
son made  acquaintance  with  the  story  of 
Arthur,  and  from  these  he  has  drawn  most 
of  his  materials  for  the  Idylls. 

•One  other  source  must  be  mentioned : 
In  1838  Lady  Charlotte  Guest  published 
The  Mabinogion,  a  translation  of  the  an- 
cient Welsh  legends  contained  in  the  "  red 
book  of  Hergest,"  which  is  in  the  library 
of  Jesus  College  at  Oxford.  From  this 
book  Tennyson  has  taken  the  story  of 
Geraint  and  Enid. 

When  we  turn  now  to  look  at  the 
manner  in  which  the  poet  has  used  his 
materials,  we  observe  two  things :  first, 
that  he  has  taken  such  liberties  with  the 
outline  of  the  story  as  were  necessary  to 
adapt  it  to  his  own  purpose ;  and  second, 
that  he  has  thrown  back  into  it  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  his  own  age. 

In  speaking  of  the  changes  which  he 
has  made  in  the  story  I  do  not  allude  to 
the  omission  of  minor  characters  and 
details,  nor  to  the  alterations  in  the  order 
of  the  narrative,  but  to  changes  of  much 
deeper  significance.  Take  for  example 
the   legend   of  Merlin:    Mallory   tells   us 


170         THE  POETRT  OF  TEtiNtSON. 

that  the  great  Mage  "  fell  in  a  dotage  on 
a  damsel  that  hight  Niraue  and  would  let 
her  have  no  rest,  but  always  he  would  be 
with  her.  And  so  he  followed  her  over 
land  and  sea.  But  she  was  passing  weary 
of  him  and  would  fain  have  been  delivered 
of  him,  for  she  was  afraid  of  him  because 
he  was  a  devil's  son.  And  so  on  a  time 
it  happed  that  Merlin  shewed  to  her  in  a 
rock,  whereas  was  a  great  wonder,  and 
wrought  by  enchantment,  that  went  under 
a  great  stone.  So  by  her  subtle  working 
she  made  Merlin  to  go  under  that  stone, 
to  let  her  into  of  the  marvels  there,  but 
she  wrought  so  there  for  him  that  he  came 
never  out  for  all  the  craft  that  he  could 
do.  And  so  she  departed  and  left 
Merlin." 

How  bald  and  feeble  is  this  narrative 
compared  with  the  version  which  Tenny- 
son has  given  1  He  has  created  the  char- 
acter of  Vivien,  the  woman  without  a 
conscience,  a  brilliant,  baleful  star,  a  fem- 
inine Iago.  He  has  made  her,  not  the 
pursued,  but  the  pursuer,  —  the  huntress, 
but  of  another  train  than  Dian's.  He 
has  painted  those  weird  scenes  in  the 
forest   of   Broceliande,  where  the  earthly 


IDYLLS   OF   THE  KING.  171 

wisdom  of  the  magician  proves  powerless 
to  resist  the  wiles  of  a  subtler  magic  than 
his  own.  He  has  made  Merlin  yield  at 
last  to  an  appeal  for  protection  which 
might  have  deceived  a  nobler  nature  than 
his.  He  tells  the  ancient  charm  in  a 
moment  of  weakness ;  and  while  he  sleeps, 
Vivien  binds  him  fast  with  his  own  en- 
chantment. He  lies  there,  in  the  hollow 
oak,  as  dead, 

And  lost  to  life  and  use  and  name  and  fame, 

while  she  leaps  down  the  forest  crying 
"Fool!"  and  exulting  in  her  triumph. 
It  is  not  a  pleasant  story.  In  some  re- 
spects it  is  even  repulsive:  it  was  meant 
to  be  so.  But  it  has  a  power  in  it  that 
was  utterly  unknown  to  the  old  legend ; 
it  is  the  familiar  tale  of  Sophocles'  Ajax, 
or  of  Samson  and  Delilah,  told  with  un- 
rivalled skill  and  beauty  of  language. 

There  is  another  change,  of  yet  greater 
importance,  which  affects  not  a  single 
idyll,  but  the  entire  cycle.  Mallory  has 
made  the  downfall  of  the  Round  Table 
and  the  death  of  Arthur  follow,  at  least 
in  part,  a  great  wrong  which  the  King 
himself     had     committed.      Modred,    the 


172  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

traitor,  is  represented  as  the  son  of  Belli- 
cent,  whom  Arthur  had  loved  and  be- 
trayed in  his  youth,  not  knowing  that  she 
was  his  own  half-sister.  Thus  the  story 
becomes  a  tragedy  of  Nemesis.  The  King 
is  pursued  and  destroyed,  like  CEdipus  in 
the  Greek  drama,  by  the  consequences  of 
his  own  sin.  Tennyson  has  entirely  elim- 
inated this  element.  He  makes  the  King 
say  of  Modred, 

I  must  strike  against  the  man  they  call 
My  sister's  son  —  no  kin  of  mine. 

He  traces  the  ruin  of  the  realm  to  other 
causes,  —  the  transgression  of  Lancelot 
and  Guinevere,  the  corruption  of  the  court 
through  the  influence  of  Vivien,  and  the 
perversion  of  Arthur's  ideals  among  his 
own  followers. 

Mr.  Swinburne  —  the  most  eloquent  of 
dogmatists  —  asserts  that  this  change  is 
•  a  fatal  error,  that  the  old  story  was  infi- 
nitely nobler  and  more  poetic,  and  that 
Tennyson  has  ruined  it  in  the  telling. 
Lavish  in  his  praise  of  other  portions  of 
the  Laureate's  work,  he  has  been  equally 
lavish  in  his  blame  of  the  Idylls.  He  calls 
them  the   "  Morte  d'Albert,  or   Idvlls   of 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING. 


173 


the   Prince  Consort  ; "  he   pours   out  the 
vials  of  his  contempt  upon  the   character 
of    "the    blameless    king,"    and    declares 
that  it  presents  the  very  poorest  and  most 
pitiful   standard   of    duty   or   of   heroism. 
And  all  this  wrath,  so  far  as  I  can  under- 
stand it,  is  caused  chiefly  by  the  fact  that 
Tennyson  has  chosen  to  free  Arthur  from 
the  taint  of  incest,  and  represent  him,  not 
as  the  victim  of  an  inevitable  tragic  des- 
tiny, but  rather  as  a  pure,  brave  soul,  who 
fights  in  one  sense  vainly,  but  in  another 
and  a    higher   sense    successfully,    against 
the  forces  of  evil  in  the  world  around  him. 
But  when  we  come  to  look  more  closely 
at  Mr.  Swinburne's  criticism,  we  can  see 
that  it   is   radically    unjust   because  it   is 
based  upon  ignorance.     He  does  not  seem 
to    know    that    the    element    of    Arthur's 
spiritual    glory     belongs    to    the    ancient 
story  just  as  much  as  the  darker  element 
of  blind  sin,  clinging  shame,  and  remorse- 
less fate.     At  one   time,  the  King  is  de* 
scribed   as   the   very   flower    of    humanity, 
the  most  perfect  man  that  God  had  made 
since  Adam  ;  at  another  time  he  is  exhib- 
ited  as  a  slaver  of   innocents  planning  to 
destroy  all  the  "  children  born  of  lords  and 


174  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

ladies,  on  May-day,"  because  Merlin  had 
predicted  that  one  of  them  would  be  his 
own  rival  and  destroyer.  Mallory  has 
woven  together  these  incongruous  threads 
after  the  strangest  fashion.  But  no  one 
who  has  read  his  book  can  doubt  which 
of  the  two  threads  is  the  more  important. 
It  is  the  glory  of  Arthur,  his  superiority 
to  his  own  knights,  his  noble  purity  and 
strength,  that  really  control  the  story ; 
and  the  other,  darker  thread  sinks  gradu- 
ally out  of  sight,  becomes  more  and  more 
obscure,  until  finally  it  is  lost,  and  Arthur's 
name  is  inscribed  upon  his  tomb  as  Rex 
quondam,  rexque  futurus. 

Now  it  was  open  to  Tennyson  to  choose 
which  of  the  threads  he  would  follow; 
but  it  was  impossible  to  follow  both.  He 
would  have  had  no  hero  for  his  poem,  he 
would  have  been  unable  to  present  any 
consistent  picture  of  the  King  unless  he 
had  exercised  a  liberty  of  selection  among 
these  incoherent  and  at  bottom  contradic- 
tory elements  which  Mallory  had  vainly 
tried  to  blend. 

If  he  had  intended  to  make  a  tragedy 
after  the  old  Greek  fashion,  in  which  Fate 
should  be  the  only  real  hero,  that   would 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KINO.       .  175 

have  been  another  thing:  then  he  must 
have  retained  the  unconscious  sin  of 
Arthur,  his  weakness,  his  impotence  to 
escape  from  its  consequences,  as  the  cen- 
tral and  dominant  motive  of  the  story. 
But  his  design  was  diametrically  the  op- 
posite of  this.  He  was  writing  in  the 
modern  spirit,  which  lays  the  emphasis 
not  on  Fate,  but  on  Free-will.  He  meant 
to  show  that  the  soul  of  man  is  not  bound 
in  inextricable  toils  and  foredoomed  to 
hopeless  struggle,  but  free  to  choose  be- 
tween good  and  evil,  and  that  the  issues 
of  life,  at  least  for  the  individual,  depend 
upon  the  nature  of  that  choice.  It  was 
for  this  reason  that  he  made  Arthur,  as 
ideal  of  the  highest  manhood,  pure 
from  the  stains  of  ineradicable  corruption, 
and  showed  him  rising,  moving  onward, 
and  at  last  passing  out  of  sight,  like  a 
radiant  star  which  accon?.  [  ss  course 

in  right  and  beauty. 

Mr.  Swinburne  has  a  right  to  find  fault 
with  Arthur's  character  as  an  ideal;  he 
has  a  right  to  say  that  there  are  serious 
defects  in  it,  that  it  lacks  virility,  that  it 
has  a  touch  of  insincerity  about  it,  that 
it  comes  perilously  near  to   seif-compia- 


176         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

cency  and  moral  priggishness.  There  may 
be  a  grain  of  truth  in  some  of  these  criti- 
cisms. But  to  condemn  the  Idylls  because 
they  are  not  built  upon  the  lines  of  a 
Greek  Tragedy  is  as  superfluous  and  un- 
just as  it  would  be  to  blame  a  pine-tree 
for  not  resembling  an  oak,  or  to  despise 
a  Gothic  cathedral  because  it  differs  from 
a  Doric  temple. 

It  was  legitimate,  then,  for  Tennyson  to 
select  out  of  the  mass  of  materials  which 
Mallory  had  collected  such  portions  as 
were  adapted  to  form  the  outline  of  a 
consistent  story,  and  to  omit  the  rest  as 
unnecessary  and  incapable  of  being  brought 
into  harmony  with  the  design.  But  was 
it  also  legitimate  for  the  poet  to  treat  his 
subject  in  a  manner  and  spirit  so  dis- 
tinctly modern, — to  make  his  characters 
discuss  the  problems  and  express  the  senti- 
ments which  belong  to  the  nineteenth 
century  ? 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  has  done 
this.  Not  only  are  many  of  the  questions 
of  morality  and  philosophy  which  arise  in 
the  course  of  the  Idylls,  questions  which 
were  unknown  to  the  Middle  Ages,  but 
the  tone  of  some   of  the  most  suggestive 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  177 

and  important  speeches  of  Merlin,  of 
Arthur,  of  Lancelot,  of  Tristram,  is  mani- 
festly the  tone  of  these  latter  days.  Take 
for  example  Merlin's  oracular  triplets  in 
The  Coming  of  Arthur :  — 

Rain,  rain  and  sun!  a  rainbow  on  the  lea! 
And  truth  is  this  to  me,  and  that  to  thee ; 
And  truth  or  clothed  or  naked  let  it  be. 

We  recognize  here  the  accents  of  the 
modern  philosopher  who  holds  that  all 
knowledge  is  relative  and  deals  only  with 
phenomena,  the  reality  being  unknowable. 
Or  listen  to  Tristram  as  he  argues  with 
Isolt : — 

The  vows  1 
0  ay  —  the  wholesome  madness  of  an  hour. 
.  .  .  The  wide  world  laughs  at  it. 
And  worldling  of  the  world  am  I,  and  know 
The  ptarmigan  that  whitens  ere  his  hour 
Woos  his  own  end  ;  we  are  not  angels  here, 
Nor  shall  be  :  vows  —  I  am  woodman  of  the  woods 
And  hear  the  garnet-headed  yaffingale 
Mock  them :  my  soul,  we  love  but  while  we  may; 
And  therefore  is  my  love  so  large  for  thee, 
Seeing  it  is  not  bounded  save  by  love. 

That  is  the  modern  doctrine  of  free  love, 
not  only  in  its  conclusion,  but  in  its  argu- 
ment drawn  from  the  example  of  the  birds, 
—  the  untimely  ptarmigan  that  invites  de- 
struction, and  the  red-crested  woodpecker 


178  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

that  pursues  its  amours  in  the  liberty  of 
nature. 

Or  hear  the  speech  which  Arthur  makes 
to  his  knights  when  they  return  from  the 
quest  of  the  Holy  Grail :  — 

And  some  among  yon  held,  that  if  the  King 
Had  seen  the  sight  he  would  have  sworn  the  tow  : 
Not  easily,  seeing  that  the  King  must  gnard 
That  which  he  rules,  and  is  but  as  the  hind, 
To  whom  a  space  of  land  is  given  to  plough, 
Who  may  not  wander  from  the  allotted  field 
Before  his  work  be  done. 

That  is  the  modern  conception  of  kingship, 
the  idea  of  responsibility  as  superior  to 
authority.  Public  office  is  a  public  trust. 
The  discharge  of  duty  to  one's  fellow-men, 
the  work  of  resisting  violence  and  main- 
taining order  and  righting  the  wrongs  of 
the  oppressed,  is  higher  and  holier  than  the 
following  of  visions.  The  service  of  man 
is  the  best  worship  of  God.  It  was  not 
thus  that  kings  thought,  it  was  not  thus 
that  warriors  talked  in  the  sixth  century. 

But  has  the  poet  any  right  to  transfer  the 
ideas  and  feelings  of  his  own  age  to  men 
and  women  who  did  not  and  could  not  en- 
tertain them?  The  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion depends  entirely  upon  the  view  which 
we   take   of    the   nature    and   purpose  of 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  179 

poetry.  If  it  is  to  give  an  exact  historical 
account  of  certain  events,  then  of  course 
every  modern  touch  in  an  ancient  story, 
every  reflection  of  the  present  into  the  past, 
is  a  blemish.  But  if  the  object  of  poetry 
is  to  bring  out  the  meaning  of  human  life, 
to  quicken  the  dead  bones  of  narrative  with 
a  vital  spirit,  to  show  us  character  and  ac- 
tion in  such  a  way  that  our  hearts  shall  be 
moved  and  purified  by  pity  and  fear,  in- 
dignation and  love  ;  then  certainly  it  is  not 
only  lawful  but  inevitable  that  the  poet 
should  throw  into  his  work  the  thoughts 
and  emotions  of  his  own  age.  For  these 
are  the  ouly  ones  that  he  can  draw  from 
the  life. 

There  is  a  certain  kind  of  realism  which 
absolutely  destroys  reaKty  in  a  work  of  art. 
It  is  the  shabby  realism  of  the  French 
painter  who  took  it  for  granted  that  the 
only  way  to  paint  a  sea-beach  with  accu- 
racy was  to  sprinkle  the  canvas  with  actual 
sand  ;  the  shabby  realism  of  M.  Verest- 
schagin,  who  gives  us  coloured  photographs 
of  Palestinian  Jews  as  a  representation  of 
the  life  of  Christ ;  the  shabby  realism  of  the 
writers  who  are  satisfied  with  reproducing 
the  dialect,  the  dress,  the  manners  of  the 


180  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

time  and  country  in  which  the  scene  of  their 
story  is  laid,  without  caring  whether  their 
dramatis  persona  have  any  human  nature 
and  life  in  them  or  not.  Great  pictures  or 
great  poems  have  never  been  produced  in 
this  way.  They  have  always  been  full  of 
anachronisms,  —  intellectual  and  moral  an- 
achronisms, I  mean,  —  and  their  want  of 
scientific  accuracy  is  the  very  condition  of 
their  poetic  truth. 

Every  poet  of  the  first  rank  has  idealized 
—  or  let  us  rather  say,  vitalized  —  his  char- 
acters by  giving  to  them  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  which  he  has  himself  experienced, 
or  known  by  living  contact  with  men  and 
women  of  his  own  day.  Homer  did  this 
with  Ulysses,  Virgil  with  iEneas,  Shake- 
speare with  Hamlet,  Milton  with  Satan, 
Goethe  with  Faust.  From  the  very  begin- 
ning, the  Arthurian  legends  have  been 
treated  in  the  same  way.  Poets  and  prose 
romancers  have  made  them  the  mirror  of 
/their  own  chivalric  ideals  and  aspirations. 
Compared  with  the  Rolands  and  the  Alis- 
cans  of  the  chansons  de  geste,  Lancelot  and 
Gawain  and  Percivale  are  modern  gentle- 
men. And  why?  Not  because  the  supposed 
age  of  Arthur  was  really  better  than  the  age 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  181 

of  Charlemagne,  but  simply  because  Chre- 
tien de  Troyes  and  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach  had  higher  and  finer  conceptions  of 
knighthood  and  piety  and  courtesy  and  love, 
which  they  embodied  in  their  heroes  of  the 
Round  Table. 

No  one  imagines  that  the  Morte  (T Arthur 
in  any  of  its  forms  is  an  exact  reproduction 
of  life  and  character  in  Britain  in  the  time 
of  the  Saxon  invasion.  It  is  a  reflection  of 
the  later  chivalry,  —  the  chivalry  of  the 
Norman  and  Angevin  kings.  If  the  story 
could  be  used  to  convey  the  ideals  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  why  not 
also  the  ideals  of  the  nineteenth  century  ? 
If  it  be  said  that  Arthur  was  not  really  f 
modern  gentleman,  it  may  be  answered, 
that  it  is  just  as  certain  that  he  was  not  a 
mediaeval  gentleman ;  perhaps  he  was  not 
a  gentleman  at  all.  There  was  no  more 
necessity  that  Tennyson  should  be  true  to 
Mallory,  than  there  was  that  Mallory  should 
be  true  to  Walter  Map  or  Robert  de  Borron. 
Each  of  them  was  a  poet,  a  maker,  a  creator 
for  his  own  age.  The  only  condition  upon 
which  it  was  possible  for  Tennyson  to  make 
a  poem  about  Arthur  and  his  knights  was 
that  he  should  cast  his  own  thonqrhts  into 


182        TSE  POETRY  OF  TEmmOR 

the  moult  legends,  a 

them  reore;sent  living  ideas  and  I    . 
character.    This  he  has  done  so  success 
that  the  Idylh  stand  among  the  most  repre- 
sentative poems  of  the  present  age. 


in. 

Two  things  are  to  be  considered 
work  of  art :  the  style  and  the  substfc 

So  far  as  the  outward  form  of  the  Idylls 
is  concerned,  they  take  a  very  high  j 
in  English  verse.     In  music  of  rhythm.  in 
beauty  of  diction,  in  richness  of  illustra- 
tion, they  are  unsurpassed.     They 
bine  in  a  rare  way   two  qualities  wl 
3eem  Irreconcilable,  —  delicacy  and  g 
deur,  the   power  of    observing  the 

details  and    painting   them   witTi 
absolute  truth  of  touch,  and  the  power  of 
clofching  large  thoughts  in  simple,  vigor- 
sweeping  words. 

>vould  be  an  easy  matter  to  give  ex- 
Jes  of  the  first  of  these  qualities 
y  page  of  the  Idylh.    They  are 
ittle  pictures  which  show  that  Tenny- 
has  studied  Nature  at  first  hand,  and 
he   understands  how  to   catch    and 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING  183 

reproduce  the  most  fleeting  and  delicate 
expressions  of  her  face.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, some  of  his  studies  of  trees.  He 
has  seen  the  ancient  yew-tree  tossed  by 
the  gusts  of  April,  — 

That  puff'd  the  swaying  branches  into  smoke,  — 

little  clouds  of  dust  rising  from  it,  as  if  it 
were  on  fire.  He  has  noted  the  resem- 
blance between  a  crippled,  shivering  beg- 
gar and 

An  old  dwarf-elm 
That  turns  its  back  on  the  salt  blast; 

and  the  line  describes  exactly  the  stunted, 
suffering,  patient  aspect  of  a  tree  that 
grows  beside  the  sea  and  is  bent  landward 
by  the  prevailing  winds.  He  has  felt  the 
hush  that  broods  upon  the  forest  when  a 
tempest  is  coming,  — 

And  the  dark  wood  grew  darker  toward  the  storm 
In  silence. 

Not  less  exact  is  his  knowledge  of  the 
birds  that  haunt  the  forests  and  the  fields. 
He  has  seen  the 

Careful  robins  eye  the  delver's  toil ; 

and  listened  to 

The  great  plover's  human  whistle, 

and  marked  at  sunset,  in  the  marshes,  how 


184         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

The  lone  hern  forgets  his  melancholy, 
Lets  down  his  other  leg,  and,  stretching,  dreams 
Of  goodly  supper  in  the  distant  pool. 

He  knows,  also,  how  the  waters  flow 

and  fall ;  how  a  wild  brook 

Slopes  o'er  a  little  stone, 
Banning  too  vehemently  to  break  upon  it ; 

how,  in  a  sharper  rapid,  there  is  a  place 

Where  the  crisping  white 
Plays  ever  back  upon  the  sloping  wave ; 

how  one 

That  listens  near  a  torrent  mountain-brook 
All  thro'  the  crash  of  the  near  cataract,  hears 
The  drumming  thunder  of  the  huger  fall 
At  distance. 

Most  remarkable  of  all  is  his  knowledge 

of  the  sea,  and  his  power  to  describe  it. 

He  has  looked  at  it  from  every  standpoint 

and  caught  every   phase  of  its  changing 

aspect.     Take  these  four  pictures.     First, 

you  stand  upon  the  cliffs  of  Cornwall  and 

watch  the  huge  Atlantic  billows,  blue  as 

sapphire   and  bright   with    sunlight,   and 

you  understand  how  Isolt  could  say, 

O  sweeter  than  all  memories  of  thee, 
Deeper  than  any  yearnings  after  thee, 
Seem'd  those  far-rolling,  westward-sviiling  seas. 

Then,  you  lie  upon   the  smooth  level  of 
some  broad  beach,  on  a  summer  afternoon, 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  185 

And  watch  the  curled  white  of  the  coming  wave 
Glass'd  in  the  slippery  sand  before  it  breaks. 

Then,  you  go  into  a  dark  cavern  like  that 
of  Staffa,  and  see  the  dumb  billows  rolling 
in,  one  after  another,  groping  their  way 
into  the  farthest  recesses  as  if  they  were 
seeking  to  find  something  that  they  had 
lost,  and  you  know  how  it  was  with  Merlin 
when 

So  dark  a  forethought  roll'd  about  his  brain, 
As  on  a  dull  day  in  an  ocean  cave 
The  blind  wave  feeling  round  his  long  sea-hall 
In  silence. 

Then,  you  stand  on  the  deck  of  a  vessel 

in  a  gale,  —  not  on  the  blue  Atlantic,  but 

on  the  turbid  German  Ocean,  —  and  you 

behold  how 

A  wild  wave  in  the  wide  North-sea, 
Green-glimmering  toward  the  summit,  bears  with  all 
Its  stormy  crests  that  smoke  against  the  skies, 
Down  on  a  bark,  and  overbears  the  bark 
And  him  that  helms  it. 

I  think  it  is  safe  to  say  that  these  four 
wave-pictures  have  never  been  surpassed, 
either  in  truth  or  in  power,  by  any  artist 
in  words  or  colours. 

But  if  it  should  be  asserted  that  lines  like 
these  prove  the  fineness  of  Tennyson's  art 
rather  than  the  greatness  of  his  poetry,  the 


186    THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

assertion  might  be  granted,  and  still  we 
should  be  able  to  support  the  larger  claim 
by  pointing  to  passages  in  the  Idylls  which 
are  unquestionably  magnificent,  —  great 
not  only  in  expression  but  great  also  in 
thought.  There  are  single  lines  which 
have  the  felicity  and  force  of  epigrams: 

Obedience  is  the  courtesy  due  to  kings. 
He  makes  no  friend  who  never  made  a  foe. 
Man  dreams  of  fame  while  woman  wakes  to  love. 
A  doubtful  throne  is  ice  on  summer  seas. 
Mockery  is  the  fume  of  little  hearts. 

There   are  longer   passages  in  which  the 

highest  truths  are  uttered  without  effort, 

and  in  language  so  natural  and  inevitable 

that   we   have    to   look   twice    before   we 

realize    its   grandeur.     Take   for   example 

the  description  of  human  error  in  Geraint 

and  Enid : 

O  purblind  race  of  miserable  men, 
How  many  among  us  even  at  this  hour 
Do  forge  a  lifelong  trouble  for  ourselves 
By  taking  true  for  false,  or  false  for  true ; 
Here,  thro'  the  feeble  twilight  of  this  world, 
Groping,  how  many,  until  we  pass  and  reach 
That  other,  where  we  see  as  we  are  seen  ! 

Or  take  Arthur's  speech  to  Lancelot  in 
the  Holy  Grail :  — 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  187 

Never  yet 
Could  all  of  true  and  noble  in  knight  and  man 
Twine  round  one  sin,  whatever  it  might  be, 
With  such  a  closeness,  but  apart  there  grew 

Some  root  of  knighthood  and  pure  nobleness : 
Whereto  see  thou,  that  it  may  bear  its  flower. 

Or,  best  of  all,  take  that  splendid  de- 
scription of  Lancelot's  disloyal  loyalty  to 
Guinevere,  in  Maine:  — 

The  shackles  of  an  old  love  straitened  him  : 
His  honour  rooted  in  dishonour  stood, 
And  faith  unfaithful  kept  him  falsely  true. 

Shakespeare  himself  has  nothing  more 
perfect  than  this.  It  is  an  admirable  ex- 
ample of  what  has  been  called  "  the  grand 
style,"  —  terse  yet  spacious,  vigorous  yet 
musical,  clear  yet  suggestive ;  not  a  word 
too  little  or  too  much,  and  withal  a  sense 
of  something  larger  in  the  thought,  which 
words  cannot  fully  reveal. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  quote  at 
length  such  a  familiar  passage  as  the  part- 
ing of  Arthur  and  Guinevere  at  Almes- 
bury.  But  let  any  reader  take  this  up 
and  study  it  carefully  ;  mark  the  fluency 
and  strength  of  the  verse  ;  the  absence  of 
all  sensationalism,  and  yet  the  thrill  in 
the  far-off  sound  of  the  solitary  trumpet 


188  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

that  blows  while  Guinevere  lies  in  the 
dark  at  Arthur's  feet ;  the  purity  and 
dignity  of  the  imagery,  the  steady  onward 
and  upward  movement  of  the  thought, 
the  absolute  simplicity  of  the  language  as 
it  is  taken  word  by  word,  and  yet  the 
richness  and  splendour  of  the  effect  which 
it  produces,  —  and  if  he  is  candid,  I  think 
he  must  admit  that  there  have  been  few 
English  poets  masters  of  as  grand  a  style 
as  this. 

But  of  course  the  style  alone  does  not 
make  a  masterpiece,  nor  will  any  number 
of  eloquent  fragments  redeem  a  poem  from 
failure  if  it  lacks  the  soul  of  greatness. 
The  subject  of  it  must  belong  to  poetry ; 
that  is  to  say,  it  must  be  adapted  to  move 
the  feelings  as  well  as  to  arouse  the  intel- 
lect, it  must  have  the  element  of  mystery 
as  well  as  the  element  of  clearness. 
Whether  the  form  be  lyric  or  epic,  dra- 
matic or  idyllic,  the  poet  must  make  us 
feel  that  he  has  something  to  say  that  is 
not  only  worth  saying,  but  also  fitted  to 
give  us  pleasure  through  the  quickening 
of  the  emotions.  The  central  idea  of  the 
poem  must  be  vital  and  creative;  it  must 
have  power  to  sustain  itself  in  our  minds 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  189 

while  we  read ;  it  must  be  worked  out 
coherently,  and  yet  it  must  suggest  that  it 
belongs  to  a  larger  truth  whose  depths  are 
unexplored  and  inaccessible.  It  seems  to 
me  that  these  are  the  conditions  of  a  great 
poem.  We  have  now  to  consider  whether 
or  not  they  are  fulfilled  in  the  Idylh  of 
the  King. 

The  meaning  of  the  Idylh  has  been 
distinctly  stated  by  the  poet  himself,  and 
we  are  bound  to  take  his  words  as  the 
clue  to  their  interpretation.  In  the 
"  Dedication  to  the  Queen  "  he  says :  — 

Accept  this  old  imperfect  tale 
New-old,  and  shadowing  Sense  at  war  with  Soul, 
Rather  than  that  gray  king,  whose  name,  a  ghost, 
Streams  like  a  cloud,  man-shaped,  from  mountain-peak, 
And  cleaves  to  cairn  and  cromlech  still :  or  him 
Of  Geoffrey's  book,  or  him  of  Malleor's,  one 
Touched  by  the  adulterous  finger  of  a  time 
That  hover'd  between  war  and  wantonness, 
And  crownings  and  dethronements. 

This  is  a  clear  disavowal  of  an  historical 
purpose  in  the  Idylh.  But  does  it  amount 
to  the  confession  that  they  are  an  allegory 
pure  and  simple  ?  It  is  in  this  sense  that 
the  critics  have  commonly  taken  the 
statement.  But  I  venture  to  think  that 
they  are  mistaken,  and  that  the  mistake 


190  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

has  been  a  barrier  to  the  thorough  com- 
prehension of  the  poem  and  a  fertile  source 
of  errors  and  absurdities  in  some  of  the 
essays  which  have  been  written  about  it. 

Let  us  understand  precisely  what  an 
allegory  is.  It  is  not  merely  a  represen- 
tation of  one  thing  by  another  which 
resembles  it  in  its  properties  or  circum- 
stances, a  picture  where  the  outward  form 
conveys  a  hidden  meaning,  a  story 

"  Where  more  is  meant  than  meets  the  ear." 

It  is  a  work  in  which  the  figures  and  char- 
acters are  confessedly  unreal,  a  masquer- 
ade in  which  the  actors  are  not  men  and 
women,  but  virtues  and  vices  dressed  up 
in  human  costume.  The  distinguishing 
mark  of  allegory  is  personification.  It 
does  not  deal  with  actual  persons,  but  with 
abstract  qualities  which  are  treated  as  if 
they  were  persons,  and  made  to  speak  and 
act  as  if  they  were  alive.  It  moves,  there- 
fore, altogether  in  a  dream-world:  it  is 
not  only  improbable  but  impossible:  at 
a  touch  its  figures  dissolve  into  thin  air. 

I  will  illustrate  my  meaning  by  examples. 
Diirer's  picture  of  Death  and  the  Knight 
has  allegorical  features  in  it,  but  it  is  not 


IDYLLS   OF   THE  KING.  191 

an  allegory  because  the  Knight  is  an  actual 
man  of  flesh  and  blood,  —  or  perhaps  one 
ought  to  say  (remembering  that  grim  fig- 
ure), of  bone  and  nerve.  Melancolia,  on 
the  contrary,  is  an  allegory  of  the  purest 
type.  Goethe's  Faust  is  not  an  allegory, 
although  it  is  full  of  symbolism  and  con- 
tains a  hidden  meaning.  Spenser's  Fairy 
Queen  is  an  allegory,  because  its  characters 
are  only  attributes  in  disguise,  and  its  plot 
is  altogether  arbitrary  and  artificial. 

The  defect  of  strict  allegory  is  that  it 
always  disappoints  us.  A  valiant  knight 
comes  riding  in,  and  we  prepare  to  follow 
his  adventures  with  wonder  and  delight. 
Then  the  poet  informs  us  that  it  is  not  a 
knight  at  all,  but  only  Courage,  or  Temper- 
ance, or  Patience,  in  armour  ;  and  straight- 
way we  lose  our  interest ;  we  know  exactly 
what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  we  care  not 
what  becomes  of  him.  A  fair  damsel  ap- 
pears upon  the  scene,  and  we  are  ready  to 
be  moved  to  pity  by  her  distress,  and  to 
love  by  her  surpassing  beauty,  until  pres- 
ently we  are  reminded  that  it  is  not  a 
damsel  at  all,  but  only  Purity,  or  Faith,  or 
Moral  Disinterestedness,  running  about  in 
woman's   clothes;    and    forthwith   we   are 


192  THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

disenchanted.  There  is  no  speculation  in 
her  eyes.  Her  hand  is  like  a  stuffed  glove. 
She  has  no  more  power  to  stir  our  feelings 
than  a  proposition  in  Euclid.  We  would 
not  shed  a  drop  of  blood  to  win  her  ghostly 
favour,  or  to  rescue  her  from  all  the  giants 
that  ever  lived. 

But  if  the  method  were  reversed ;  if  in- 
stead of  a  virtue  representing  a  person,  the 
poet  gave  us  a  person  embodying  and  rep- 
resenting a  virtue  ;  if  instead  of  the  oppo- 
sitions and  attractions  of  abstract  qualities, 
we  had  the  trials  and  conflicts  and  loves  of 
real  men  and  women  in  whom  these  quali- 
ties were  living  and  working,  —  then  the 
poet  might  remind  us  as  oft§n  as  he  pleased 
of  the  deeper  significance  of  his  story ;  we 
should  still  be  able  to  follow  it  with  interest. 

This  is  the  point  which  I  desire  to  make 
in  regard  to  the  Idylls  of  the  King.  It  is 
a  distinction  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
never  been  clearly  drawn.  The  poem  is 
not  an  allegory,  but  a  parable. 

Of  course  there  are  a  great  many  purely 
allegorical  figures  and  passages  in  it.  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake,  for  example,  is  a  personi- 
fication of  Religion.  She  dwells  in  a  deep 
calm,  far  below  the  surface  of  the  waters, 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  193 

and  when  they  are  tossed  and  troubled  by 
storms, 

Hath  power  to  walk  the  water  like  our  Lord. 

She  gives  to  the  King  his  sword  Excalibur, 
to  represent  either  the  spiritual  weapon  with 
which  the  soul  wars  against  its  enemies, 
or,  as  seems  to  me  more  probable,  the  tem- 
poral power  of  the  church.  For  it  bears 
the  double  inscription  :  — 

On  one  side 
Graven  in  the  oldest  tongue  of  all  this  world, 
"Take  me,"  but  turn  the  blade  and  ye  shall  see, 
And  written  in  the  speech  ye  speak  yourselves, 
"Cast  me  away."     And  sad  was  Arthur's  face 
Taking  it,  but  old  Merlin  counsell'd  him 
"  Take  them  and  strike ! "  the  time  to  cast  away 
Is  yet  far-off.     So  this  great  brand  the  King 
Took,  and  by  this  will  beat  his  foemen  down. 

The  necessity  of  actual  flesh-and-blood  war- 
fare against  the  heathen  is  proclaimed  in 
the  ancient  language ;  the  uselessness  of 
such  weapons  under  the  new  order,  in  the 
modern  conflict,  is  predicted  in  the  lan- 
guage of  to-day. 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake  is  described  as 
standing  on  the  keystone  of  the  gate  of 
Camelot :  — 

All  her  dress 
Wept  from  her  sides,  as  water  flowing  away : 
But,  like  the  cross,  her  great  and  goodly  arms 


194  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Stretch'd  under  all  the  cornice,  and  upheld : 
And  drops  of  water  fell  from  either  hand  : 
And  down  from  one  a  sword  was  hung,  from  one 
A  censer,  either  worn  with  wind  and  storm ; 
And  o'er  her  breast  floated  the  sacred  fish; 

and  over  all, 

High  on  the  top,  were  those  three  Queens,  the  friends 
Of  Arthur,  who  should  help  him  at  his  need. 

This  is  an  allegory  of  the  power  of  religion 
in  sustaining  the  fabric  of  society.  The 
forms  of  the  church  are  forever  changing 
and  flowing  like  water,  but  her  great  arms 
are  stretched  out  immovable,  like  the  cross. 
The  sword  is  the  symbol  of  her  justice,  the 
censer  is  the  symbol  of  her  adoration,  and 
both  bear  the  marks  of  time  and  strife. 
The  drops  that  fall  from  her  hands  are  the 
water  of  baptism,  and  the  fish  is  the  aweient 
sign  of  the  name  of  Christ. 

The  three  Queens  who  sit  up  aloft  are 
the  theological  virtues  of  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Charity. 

It  is  a  fine  piece  of  work  from  the 
mystical  standpoint ;  elaborate,  spiritual, 
suggestive,  aud  full  of  true  philosophy ; 
Ambrogio  Lorenzetti  might  have  painted 
it.  But  after  all,  it  has  little  or  nothing 
to  do  with  the  substance  of  the  poem.  The 
watery  Lady  stands  like  a  painted  figure 


IDYLLS    OF  THE  KING.  195 

on  the  wall,  and  the  three  Queens  play 
no  real  part  in  the  life  of  Arthur.  Appar- 
ently they  continue  to  sit  upon  the  cornice 
in  ornamental  idleness  while  the  King  loves 
and  toils  and  fights  and  "  drees  his  weird ; " 
and  we  are  almost  surprised  at  their  un- 
wonted activity  when  they  appear  at  last 
in  the  black  barge  and  carry  him  away  to 
the  island-valley  of  Avilion. 

There  is  another  passage  of  the  same  char- 
acter in  The  Holy  Graify  which  describes 
the  probations  of  Percivale.  He  is  allured 
from  his  quest,  first  by  appetite  under  the 
figure  of  an  orchard  full  of  pleasant  fruits, 
then  by  domestic  love  under  the  figure  of 
a  fair  woman  spinning  at  a  cottage  door, 
then  by  wealth  under  the  figure  of  a  knight 
clad  in  gold  and  jewels,  then  by  fame  under 
the  figure  of  a  mighty  city  filled  with  shouts 
of  welcome  and  applause ;  but  all  these  are 
only  visions,  and  when  they  vanish  at  Per- 
civale's  approach  we  cannot  feel  that  there 
was  any  reality  in  his  trials,  or  that  he  de- 
serves any  great  credit  for  resisting  them. 

The  most  distinct  example  of  this  kind 
of  work  is  found  in  Oareth  and  Lynette, 
in  the  description  of  the  carving  on  the 
rock.      There   are   five  figures  of    armed 


196  TBE  POET  Jit  OF  TEXXTSOtf. 

men,  Phosphorous,  Meridies,  Hesperus, 
Nox,  and  Mors,  all  chasing  the  human 
soul, 

A  shape  that  fled 
With  broken  wings,  torn  raiment  and  loose  hair, 
For  help  and  shelter  to  the  hermit's  cave. 

This  is  definitely  called  an  allegory,  and 

its  significance  is  explained  as 

The  war  of  Time  against  the  soul  of  man. 

But  there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  these  graven  images  and  the  brave 
boy  Gareth  riding  through  the  forest  with 
the  bright,  petulant,  audacious  maiden 
Lynette.  If  the  former  are  properly  called 
allegorical,  the  latter  must  certainly  be 
described  by  some  other  adjective.  Ga- 
reth is  alive,  very  much  alive  indeed,  in 
his  ambition  to  become  a  knight,  in  his 
quarrel  with  Sir  Kay  the  crabbed  senes- 
chal, in  his  sturdy  courtship  of  the  damsel 
with  "  the  cheek  t>f  apple-blossom,"  in  his 
conflict  with  the  four  caitiffs  who  kept 
Lyonors  shut  up  in  her  castle.  We  follow 
his  adventures  with  such  interest  that  we. 
are  fairly  vexed  with  the  poet  for  refusing 
to  tell  us  at  the  end  whether  this  cheerful 
companion  and  good  fighter  married  Lyn- 
ette or  her  elder  sister. 


TDYLKS  OF  THE  KING.  197 

We  must  distinguish,  then,  between  the 
allegorical  fragments  which  Tennyson  has 
woven  into  his  work,  and  the  substance  of 
the  IdylU  ;  between  the  scenery  and  me- 
chanical appliances,  and  the  actors  who 
move  upon  the  stage.  The  attempt  to 
interpret  the  poem  as  a  strict  allegory 
breaks  down  at  once  and  spoils  the  story. 
Suppose  you  say  that  Arthur  is  the  Con- 
science, and  Guinevere  is  the  Flesh,  and 
Merlin  is  the  Intellect ;  then  pray  what 
is  Lancelot,  and  what  is  Geraint,  and 
what  is  Vivieu  ?  What  business  has  the 
Conscience  to  fall  in  love  with  the  Flesh  ? 
What  attraction  has  Vivian  for  the  Intel- 
lect without  any  passions?  If  Merlin  is 
not  a  man,  "  Que  diable  allait-il  faire 
dans  cette  galere?"  The  whole  affair  be- 
comes absurd,  unreal,  incomprehensible, 
uninteresting. 

But  when  we  take  the  King  and  his 
people  as  actual  men  and  women,  when 
we  put  ourselves  into  the  story  and  let  it 
carry  us  along,  then  we  understand  that 
it  is  a  parable  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  casts 
beside  itself  an  image,  a  reflection,  of 
something  spiritual,  just  as  a  man  walking 
in  the  sunlight  is  followed  by  his  shadow. 


198         THE  POETRY  OF  TEN  NY  SOX. 

It  is  a  tale  of  human  life,  and  therefore, 
being  told  with  a  purpose,  it 

Shadows  Sense  at  war  with  Soul 

Let  us  take  up  this  idea  of  the  conflict 
between  sense  and  soul  and  carry  it  out 
through  the  IdylU. 

Arthur  is  intended  to  be  a  man  in  whom 
the  spirit  has  already  conquered  and  reigns 
supreme.  It  is  upon  this  that  his  kingship 
rests.  His  task  is  to  bring  his  realm  into 
harmony  with  himself,  to  build  up  a  spirit- 
ual and  social  order  upon  which  his  own 
character,  as  the  best  and  highest,  shall 
be  impressed.  In  other  words,  he  works 
for  the  uplifting  and  purification  of  hu- 
manity. It  is  the  problem  of  civilization. 
His  great*  enemies  in  this  task  are  not 
outward  and  visible,  —  the  heathen,  —  for 
these  he  overcomes  and  expels.  But  the 
real  foes  that  oppose  him  to  the  end  are 
the  evil  passions  in  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women  about  him.  So  long  as  these 
exist  and  dominate  human  lives,  the  dream 
of  a  perfected  society  must  remain  unreal- 
ized ;  and  when  they  get  the  upper  hand, 
even  its  beginnings  will  be  destroyed.  But 
the  conflict  is  not  an  airy,  abstract  strife  ; 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  RING.  199 

it  lies  in  the  opposition  between  those 
in  whom  the  sensual  principle  is  regnant 
and  those  in  whom  the  spiritual  principle 
is  regnant,  and  iu  the  inward  struggle  of 
ohe  noble  heart  against  the  evil,  and  of 
the  sinful  heart  against  the  good. 

This  contest  may  be  traced  through  its 
different  phases  in  the  successive  stories 
which  make  up  the  poem. 

In  The  Coming  of  Arthur,  doubt,  which 
;udges  by  the  senses,  is  matched  against 
faith,  which  follows  the  spirit.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  Arthur  is  a  pretender  and 
the  child  of  shamefulness,  or  the  true  King. 
Against  him,  stand  the  base-minded  lords 
and  barons  who  are  ready  to  accept  any 
evil  story  of  his  origin  rather  than  accept 
him  as  their  ruler.  For  him,  stand  such 
knights  as  Bedivere, — 

For  bold  in  heart  and  act  and  word  was  he 
Whenever  slander  breathed  against  the  King. 

Between  the  two  classes  stands  Leodogran, 
the  father  of  Guinevere,  uncertain  whether 
to  believe  or  doubt.  The  arguments  of 
the  clever  Queen  Bellicent  do  not  con- 
vince him.  But  at  last  he  has  a  dream 
in  which  he  sees  the  King  standing  oat 


200         TEE  POETRY  OF  TENXTSON. 

in  heaven,  crowned,  —  and  faith  conquers. 
Guinevere  is  given  to  Arthur  as  his  wife. 
His  throne  is  securely  established,  and  his 
reign  begins  prosperously. 

Then  comes  Q-areth  and  Lynette.  Here 
the  conflict  is  between  a  true  ambition  and 
a  false  pride.  Gareth  is  an  honest,  ardent 
fellow  who  longs  for  "  good  fame  and  re- 
nommee."  He  wishes  to  rise  in  the  world, 
but  he  is  willing  to  work  and  fight  his 
way  upward ;  even  to  serve  as  a  kitchen- 
knave  if  so  he  may  win  his  spurs  at  last 
and  ride  among  the  noble  knights  of  the 
Round  Table.  His  conception  of  nobility 
grasps  the  spirit  of  it  without  caring  much 
for  the  outward  form.  Lynette  is  a  society 
girl,  a  worshipper  of  rank  and  station; 
brave,  high-spirited,  lovable,  but  narrow- 
minded,  and  scornful  of  every  one  who 
lacks  the  visible  marks  of  distinction.  She 
judges  by  the  senses.  She  cannot  imagine 
that  a  man  who  comes  from  among  the 
lower  classes  can  possibly  be  a  knight,  and 
despises  Gareth's  proferred  services.  But 
his  pride,  being  true,  is  stronger  than  hers, 
being  false.  He  will  not  be  rebuffed; 
follows  her,  fights  her  battles,  wins  first 
her  admiration,  then  her  love,  and  brings 


IDYLLS  OF  1  BE  RING.  20l 

her  at  last   to   see    that   true   knighthood 
lies  not  in  the  name  but  in  the  deed. 

The  atmosphere  of  this  Idyll  is  alto- 
gether pure  and  clear.  There  is  as  yet 
no  shadow  of  the  storm  that  is  coming  to 
disturb  Arthur's  realm.  The  chivalry  of 
the  spirit  overcomes  the  chivalry  of  the 
sense  in  a  natural,  straightforward,  joyous 
way,  and  all  goes  well  with  the  world. 

But  in  Geraint  and  Enid  there  is  a 
cloud  upon  the  sky,  a  trouble  in  the  air. 
The  fatal  love  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere 
has  already  begun  to  poison  the  court 
with  suspicions  and  scandals.  It  is  in  this 
brooding  and  electrical  atmosphere  that 
jealousy,  in  the  person  of  Geraint,  comes 
into  conflict  with  loyalty,  in  the  person  of 
Enid.  The  story  is  the  same  that  Boc- 
caccio has  told  so  exquisitely  in  the  tale 
of  Griselda,  and  Shakespeare  so  tragically 
in  Othello,  —  the  story  of  a  woman,  sweet 
and  true  and  steadfast  down  to  the  very 
bottom  of  her  heart,  joined  to  a  man 
who  is  exacting  and  suspicious.  Geraint 
wakens  in  the  morning  to  find  his  wife 
weeping,  and  leaps  at  once  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  she  is  false.  He  judges  by  the 
sense  and  not  by  the  soul.     But  Enid  loves 


202         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

him  too  well  even  to  defend  herself  against 
him.  She  obeys  his  harsh  commands  and 
submits  to  his  heavy,  stupid  tests.  Yet 
even  in  her  obedience  she  distinguishes 
between  the  sense  and  the  spirit.  As  long 
as  there  is- no  danger  she  rides  before  him 
in  silence  as  he  told  her  to  do ;  but  when 
she  sees  the  robbers  waiting  in  ambush 
she  turns  back  to  warn  him: 

I  needs  must  disobey  him  for  his  good ; 
How  should  I  dare  obey  him  to  his  harm? 
Needs  mast  I  speak,  and  tho'  he  kill  me  for  it, 
I  save  a  life  dearer  to  me  than  mine. 

So  they  move  onward  through  many 
perils  and  adventures,  she  like  a  bright, 
clear,  steady  star,  he  like  a  dull,  smoulder- 
ing, smoky  fire,  until  at  last  her  loyalty 
conquers  his  jealousy,  and  he  sees  that  it 
is  better  to  trust  than  to  doubt,  and  that  a 
pure  woman's  love  has  the  power  to  vindi- 
cate its  own  honour  against  the  world,  and 
the  right  to  claim  an  absolute  and  un- 
questioning confidence.  The  soul  is  once 
more  victorious  over  the  sense. 

In  Bcdin  and  Balan  the  cloud  has  grown 
larger  and  darker,  the  hostile  influences 
in  the  realm  begin  to  make  themselves 
more  deeply  felt.     The  tributary  court  of 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KINO.  203 

Pellam,  in  which  the  hypocritical  old  king 
has  taken  to  holy  things  in  rivalry  of 
Arthur, 

And  finds  himself  descended  from  the  Saint 
Arimathean  Joseph, 

and  collects  sacred  relics,  and  drives  out 
all  women  from  his  palace  lest  he  should 
be  polluted,  while  his  son  and  heir,  Garlon, 
is  a  secret  libertine  and  murderer,  —  is  a 
picture  of  religion  corrupted  by  asceticism. 
Balin  and  Balan  are  two  brothers,  alike 
in  daring,  in.  strength,  in  simplicity,  but 
differing  in  this :  Balin  is  called  "  the 
savage,"  swift  in  impulse,  fierce  in  anger, 
unable  to  restrain  or  guide  himself;  Balan 
is  master  of  his  passion,  clear-hearted  and 
self-controlled,  his  brother's  better  angeL 
Both  men  represent  force  ;  but  one  is  force 
under  dominion  of  soul,  the  other  is  force 
under  dominion  of  sense.  By  the  false- 
hood of  Vivien,  who  now  appears  on  the 
scene,  they  are  involved  in  conflict  and 
ignorantly  give  each  other  mortal  wounds. 
It  would  seem  as  if  violence  had  con- 
quered. And  yet,  in  truth  not  ao.  Balm's 
last  words  are :  — 

Goodnight !  for  we  shall  never  bid  again 
Goodmorrow  —  Dark  my  doom  was  here,  and  dark 
It  will  be  there. 


204  THE  POETRY  OF  TENSYSON. 

But  Balan  replies  with  a  diviner  faith, 
drawing  his  brother  upward  in  death  even 
as  he  had  done  in  life,  — 

Goodnight,  trne  brother  here!  goodmorrow  there! 

Thus  far  the  higher  principle  has  been 
victorious,  though  in  the  last  instance  the 
victory  is  won  only  in  the  moment  of  an 
apparent  defeat.  But  now,  in  Merlin  and 
Vivien,  sense  becomes  the  victor.  The 
old  magician  is  a  man  in  whom  the  intel- 
lect appears  to  be  supreme.  One  might 
think  him  almost  impregnable  to  tempta- 
tion. But  the  lissome  snake  Vivien,  also 
a  type  of  keen  and  subtle  intelligence, 
though  without  learning,  finds  the  weak 
point  in  his  armour,  overcomes  him  and 
degrades  him  to  her  helpless  thrall. 

The  conflict  in  Lancelot  and  Elaine  is 
between  a  pure,  virgin  love  and  a  guilty 
passion.  The  maid  of  Astolat  is  the  lily 
of  womanhood.  The  Queen  is  the  rose, 
full-blown  and  heavy  with  fragrance. 
Never  has  a  sharper  contrast  been  drawn 
than  this:  Elaine  in  her  innocent  simpli- 
city and  singleness  of  heart;  Guinevere 
in  her  opulence  of  charms,  her  intensity, 
her   jealous  devotion.     Between   the   two 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  205 

stands  the  great  Sir  Lancelot,  a  noble 
heart  though  erring.  If  he  were  free  he 
would  turn  to  the  pure  love.  But  he  is 
not  free  ;  he  is  bound  by  ties  which  are 
interwoven  with  all  that  seems  most  pre- 
cious in  his  life.  He  could  not  break  them 
if  he  would.  And  so  the  guilty  passion 
conquers  and  he  turns  back  to  the  fatal 
sweetness  of  his  old  allegiance. 

The  Holy  Grrail  shows  us  the  strife  be- 
tween superstition,  which  is  a  sensual  relig- 
ion, and  true  faith,  which  is  spiritual.  This 
is  in  some  respects  the  richest  of  the  Idylls, 
but  it  is  also,  by  reason  of  its  theme,  the 
most  confused.  Out  of  the  mystical  twi- 
light which  envelops  the  action  this  truth 
emerges:  that  those  .knights  who  thought 
of  the  Grail  only  as  an  external  wonder,  a 
miracle  which  they  fain  would  see  because 
others  had  seen  it,  "  followed  wandering 
fires ; "  while  those  to  whom  it  became 
a  symbol  of  inward  purity  and  grace,  like 
Galahad  and  Percivale  and  even  the  dull, 
honest,  simple-minded  Bors  and  the  sin- 
tormented  Lancelot,  finally  attained  unto 
the  vision.  But  the  King,  who  remained 
at  home  and  kept  the  plain  path  of  daily 
duty,  is  the  real  hero  of  the  Idyll,  though 
he  bore  no  part  in  the  quest. 


206         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

In  Pelleas  and  Ettarre  the  victory  falls 
back  to  the  side  of  sense.     Pelleas  is  the 
counterpart  of  Elaine,  a  fair  soul  who  has 
no  thought  of  evil.     Amid  the  increasing 
darkness  of  the  court  he  sees  nothing  but 
light.     He  dreams   that  the  old  ideals  of 
chivalry  are  still  unbroken ;  to  him  all  ladies 
are  perfect,  and  all  knights  loyal.     He  is  in 
love  with  loving,  amans  amare,  as  St.  Augus 
tine  put  it,  —  and  when  Ettarre  crosses  his 
track  he  worships  her  as  a  star.     But  she 
—  "  of  the  earth,  earthy  "  —  despises  him 
as  a  child,  mocks  him,  and  casts  him  06 
Gawain,  the  flower  of  courtesy,  betrays  him 
basely.     Driven  mad  by  scorn  and  treason, 
he  rushes  away  at  last  into  the  gloom,  — a 
gallant  knight  overthrown  by  the  perfidy 
of  a  wicked  world. 

The  fool  is  the  hero  of  The  Last  Tourna- 
ment. He  knows  that  Arthur's  dream  will 
never  be  fulfilled,  knows  that  the  Queen  is 
false,  and  the  Knights  are  plotting  treason, 
and  the  whole  realm  is  on  the  verge  of  ruin  ; 
but  still  he  holds  fast  to  his  master,  and 
believes  in  him,  and  will  not  break  his  alle- 
giance to  follow  the  downward  path  of  the 
court.  Arthur  has  lifted  him  out  of  the 
baseness  of  his  old  life  and  made  him  a 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  207 

man.  Maimed  wits  and  crippled  body,  yet 
he  has.  a  soul,  —  this  little,  loyal  jester,  — 
and  he  will  not  lose  it. 

I  have  had  my  day  and  my  philosophies,— 
And  thank  the  Lord  I  am  King  Arthur's  fool. 

In  contrast  to  him  stands  Sir  Tristram,  the 
most  brilliant  and  powerful  of  the  new 
knights  who  followed  the  King  only  for 
glory,  and  despised  him  in  their  hearts,  and 
broke  his  vows  as  if  they  had  never  sworn 
them.  Poet,  musician,  huntsman,  warrior, 
perfect  in  face  and  form,  victor  in  love  and 
war,  Tristram  is  one  to  whom  faith  is  fool- 
ishness and  the  higher  life  an  idle  delusion. 
He  denies  his  soul,  mocks  at  it,  flings  it 
away  from  him. 

New  leaf,  new  life  —  the  days  of  frost  are  o'er: 
New  life,  new  love,  to  suit  the  newer  day  ; 
New  loves  are  sweet  as  those  that  went  before : 
Free  love —  free  field  — we  love  but  while  we  may. 

In  him  the  triumph  of  the  senses  is  com- 
plete. He  wins  the  prize  in  the  "  Tourna- 
ment of  the  Dead  Innocence,"  ami  the 
shouts  of  the  people  hail  him  as  their  fav- 
ourite. He  clasps  the  jewels  around  the 
neck  of  Isolt  as  she  sits  with  him  in  her 
tower  of  Tintagil  by  the  sea,  lightly  glory- 
ing in  his  conquests.     But  out  of  the  dark- 


208  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSOiV. 

ness    the   battle-axe   of    the    craven    King 

Mark   strikes    him   dead.     Meanwhile,  at 

Cainelot,  Arthur  comes  home ;  Guinevere 

has  fled ;  — 

And  while  he  climb'd, 
All  in  a  death-dumb  autumn-dripping  gloom, 
The  stairway  to  the  wall,  and  look'd  and  saw 
The  great  Queen's  bower  was  dark,  —  about  his  feet 
A  voice  clung  sobbing  till  lie  questiou'd  it, 
"  What  art  thou?  "  and  the  voice  about  his  feet 
Sent  up  an  answer,  sobbing,  "  I  am  thy  fool, 
And  I  shall  never  make  thee  smile  again." 

Yes,  a  fool,  but  also  a  soul,  and  faithful 
even  unto  death,  and  therefore  shining 
steadfastly  like  a  star  in  heaven  when  the 
false  meteor  of  sense  has  dropt  into  end- 
less night. 

The  next  Idyll  should  be  called  Arthur 
and  Guinevere.  The  conflict  now  draws 
to  its  final  issue.  It  lies  between  these 
two:  one  the  victim  of  a  great  sin,  a  crime 
of  sense  which  chose  the  lower  rather  than 
the  higher  love  ;  the  other  the  hero  of  a 
great  faith,  which  knows  that  pardon  fol- 
lows penitence,  and  seeks  to  find  some 
light  of  hope  for  the  fallen.  Is  Guinevere 
to  be  separated  from  Arthur  forever?  — 
that  is  the  question  whose  answer  hangs 
upon  the  close  of  this  struggle.     And  the 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  209 

Queen   herself   tells  us  the   result,  when 
she  says,  — 

Ah,  great  and  gentle  lord, 
Who  wast,  as  is  the  conscience  of  a  saint 
Among  his  warring  senses,  to  thy  knights  — 
.  .  .  Now  I  see  thee  what  thou  art, 
Thou  art  the  highest  and  most  human  too, 
Not  Lancelot,  nor  another.     Is  there  none 
Will  tell  the  King  I  love  him  tho'  so  late? 
Now  —  ere  he  goes  to  that  great  Battle  ?  none: 
Myself  must  tell  him  in  that  purer  life, 
But  now  it  were  too  daring. 

In  The  Passing  of  Arthur  we  have  a 
picture  of  the  brave  man  facing  death. 
All  the  imagery  of  the  poem  is  dark  and 
shadowy.  The  great  battle  has  been 
fought;  the  Round  Table  has  been  shat- 
tered ;  the  bodies  of  the  slain  lie  upon 
the  field,  friends  and  foes  mingled  together, 
and  not  a  voice  to  stir  the  silence. 

Only  the  wan  wave 
Brake  in  among  dead  faces,  to  and  fro 
Swaying  the  helpless  hands,  and  up  and  down 
Tumbling  the  hollow  helmets  of  the  fallen, 
And  shiver'd  brands  that  once  had  fought  with  Rome, 
And  rolling  far  along  the  gloomy  shores 
The  voice  of  days  of  old  and  days  to  be. 

This  is  the  tide  of  Time  which  engulfs  all 
things  mortal.  Arthur's  hour  has  come : 
he  has  lived  his  life  and  must  pass  away. 
To    Sir    Bedivere,   valiant,  simple-hearted 


210         THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

knight,  but  still  unable  to  look  beyond  the 
outward  appearance  of  death,  this  seems 
a  fatal  end  of  all  his  hopes.  He  cannot 
bear  to  cast  away  his  master's  sword,  but 
would  fain  keep  it  as  a  relic.    He  cries  :  — 

Ah !  my  Lord  Arthur,  whither  shall  I  go  ? 
Where  shall  I  hide  my  forehead  and  my  eyes  * 
For  now  I  see  the  true  old  times  are  dead ; 

But  now  the  whole  Round  Table  is  dissolved 
Which  was  an  image  of  the  mighty  world, 
And  I,  the  last,  go  forth  companionless, 
And  the  days  darken  round  me,  and  the  years, 
Among  new  men,  strange  faces,  other  minds. 

But  the  soul  of  Arthur  is  stronger,  clearer- 
sighted.  In  this  last  conflict  with  the 
senses  he  is  victorious.  He  answers  Bedi- 
vere,  with  heroic  confidence,  that  death 
does  not  end  all. 

The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new, 

And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways 

Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 

He  believes  that  by  prayer 

the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God. 

He  enters  fearlessly  upon  the  mysterious 
voyage  into  the  future.  And  as  the  barge 
floats  with  him  out  of  sight,  from  beyond 
the  light  of  the  horizon  there  come 


IDYLLS  OF   THE  KING.  211 

Sounds  as  if  some  fair  city  were  oue  voice 
Around  a  king  returning  from  his  wars. 

Thus  the  conflict  is  ended,  and  the  victo- 
rious soul  enters  its  rest. 

What  shall  we  say  of  this  picture  of 
life  which  Tennyson  has  given  us  in  his 
greatest  poena  ?  Is  it  true  ?  Does  it  grasp 
the  facts  and  draw  from  them  their  real 
lesson  ? 

First  of  all,  I  think  we  must  admit  that 
there  is  a  serious  defect  in  the  very  place 
where  it  is  most  to  be  regretted,  —  in  the 
character  of  Arthur.  He  is  too  perfect- 
for  perfection.  Tennyson  either  meant  to 
paint  a  man  who  never  had  any  conflict 
with  himself,  which  is  impossible ;  or  he 
intended  to  exhibit  a  man  in  whom  the 
conflict  had  been  fought  out,  in  which 
case  Arthur  surely  would  have  borne  some 
of  the  scars  of  contest,  shown  some  sense 
of  personal  imperfection,  manifested  a 
deeper  feeling  of  comprehension  and  com- 
passion for  others  in  their  temptations. 
But  he  appears  to  regard  his  own  char- 
acter and  conduct  as  absolutely  flawless. 
Even  in  that  glorious  parting  interview 
with  Guinevere  —  one  of  the  most  superb 
passages    in    all    literature  —  his   bearing 


V    212  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

^ verges  perilously  on  sublime  self-compla- 
cency. He  shows  no  consciousness  of  any 
fault  on  his  own  part.  He  acts  and  speaks 
as  if  he  were  far  above  reproach.  But 
was  that  possible?  Could  such  a  catas- 
trophe have  come  without  blame  on  both 
sides?  Guinevere  was  but  a  girl  when 
she  left  her  father's  court  It  was  nat- 
ural —  yes,  and  it  was  right  —  that  she 
should  desire  warmth  and  colour  in  her 
life.  She  rode  among  the  flowers  in  May 
with  Lancelot.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  she 
found  delight  in  the  journey?  She  was 
married  to  the  solemn  King  before  the 
stateliest  of  Britain's  altar-shrines  with 
pompous  ceremonies.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  she  was  oppressed  and  made  her  vows 
with  drooping  eyes?  And  then,  at  once, 
the  King  began  his  state-banquets  and 
negotiations  with  the  Roman  ambassadors. 
He  was  absorbed  in  the  affairs  of  his  king- 
dom. He  left  the  young  Queen  to  herself, 
—  and  to  Lancelot.  He  seemed  to  be 
'  dreaming  of  fame  while  woman  woke  to 
love.'  Is  it  strange  that  she  thought  him 
cold,  neglectful,  irresponsive,  and  said  to 
herself,  "  He  cares  not  for  me  "  ?  Is  it  to 
be  marvelled  at  that  she  found  an  outlet 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  213 

for  ber  glowing  heart  in  her  companion- 
ship with  Lancelot  ?  Perhaps  Arthur's 
conduct  was  inevitable  for  one  immersed 
as  he  was  in  the  cares  of  state;  perhaps 
he  was  unconscious  that  he  was  exposing 
his  wife,  defenceless  and  alone,  to  a  peril 
from  which  he  only  could  have  protected 
her ;  but  when  at  last  the  consequence 
was  discovered,  he  was  bound  to  confess 
that  he  had  a  share  in  the  transgression 
and  the  guilt.  It  is  the  want  of  this  note 
that  mars  the  harmony  of  his  parting 
speech.  A  little  more  humanity  would 
have  compensated  for  a  little  less  piety. 
Had  Arthur  been  a  truer  husband,  Guin- 
evere might  have  been  a  more  faithful 
wife.  The  excess  of  virtue  is  a  vice.  The 
person  who  feels  no  consciousness  of  sin 
must  be  either  more  or  less  than  man. 
This  is  the  worst  defect  of  the  Idylls, — 
that  the  central  character  comes  so  near  to 
being 

Faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly  null. 

But  this  defect  is  outweighed  and  can- 
celled by  the  fact  that  the  poem,  after  all, 
does  recognize,  and  bring  out  in  luminous 
splendour,  the  great  truths  of  human  life. 


214         THE  POETRY  OF  TEN  NT  SON. 

The  first  of  these  truths  is  that  sin  ia 
\  the  cause  of  disorder  and  misery,  and 
until  it  is  extirpated  the  perfect  society 
cannot  be  securely  established.  And  by 
sin  Tennyson  does  not  mean  the  desire 
of  existence,  but  the  transgression  of  law. 
The  right  to  live  —  the  right  to  desire  to 
live  —  is  not  denied  for  a  moment.  It  is 
in  fact  distinctly  asserted,  and  the  idea  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  underlies  the 
whole  poem.  But  life  must  be  according 
to  righteousness,  if  it  is  to  be  harmonious 
V  and  happy;  and  righteousness  consists  in 
conformity  to  law.  Love  is  the  motive 
force  of  the  poem.  The  King  himself 
acknowledges  its  dominion,  and  says, — 

For  saving  I  be  join'd 
To  her  that  is  the  fairest  under  heaven, 
I  seem  as  nothing  in  the  mighty  world, 
And  cannot  will  my  will,  nor  work  my  work 
Wholly,  nor  make  myself,  in  mine  own  realm, 
Victor  and  lord. 

But  love  also  must  move  within  the 
bounds  of  law,  must  be  true  to  its  vows. 
Not  even  the  strongest  and  most  beautiful 
soul  may  follow  the  guidance  of  passion 
without  restraint ;  for  the  greater  the 
genius,    the   beauty,  the   power,  of   those 


IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING.  215 

who  transgress,  the  more  fatal  will  be  the 
influence  of  thei.  sin  upon  other  lives. 

This  indeed  is  the  lesson  of  the  fall  of 
Lancelot  and  Guinevere.  It  was  because 
they  stood  so  high,  because  they  were  so 
glorious  in  their  manhood  and  womanhood, 
that  their  example  had  power  to  infect 
the  court. 

Sin  is  the,  principle  of  disintegration  and 
death.  It  is  this  that  corrupts  societies, 
and  brings  about  the  decline  and  fall  of 
nations;  and  so  long  as  sin  dwells  in  the 
heart  of  man  all  efforts  to  create  a  perfect 
state,  or  even  to  establish  an  order  like  the 
Round  Table  in  self-perpetuating  security, 
must  fail.  The  redemption  and  purifica- 
tion of  the  earth  is  a  long  task,  beyond 
human  strength  $  as  Tennyson  has  said  in 
Lockdey  Hall,  Sixty  Years  After,  — 

Ere  she  reach  her  heavenly-hest  a  God  must  mingle  with 
the  game. 

But  side  by  side  with  this  truth,  and  in 
perfect  harmony  with  it,  Tennyson  teaches 
that  the  soul  of  man  has  power  to  resist 
and  conquer  sin  within  its  own  domain, 
to  triumph  over  sense  by  steadfast  loyalty 
to  the  higher  nature,  and  thus  to  achieve 


216  THE  POETRY  OF  TENXYSON. 

peace  and  final  glory.  When  I  say  he 
teaches  this,  I  do  not  mean  that  he  sets  it 
forth  in  any  formal  way  as  a  doctrine.  I 
mean  that  he  shows  it  in  the  life  of  Arthur 
as  a  fact.  The  King  chooses  his  ideal, 
and  follows  it,  and  it  lifts  him  up  and  sets 
him  on  his  course  like  a  star.  His  life  is 
not  a  failure,  as  it  has  been  called,  but 
a  glorious  success,  for  it  demonstrates  the 
freedom  of  the  will  and  the  strength  of 
the  soul  against  the  powers  of  evil  and 
the  fate  of  sin.  Its  motto  might  be  taken 
from  that  same  poem  from  which  we  have 
just  quoted,  —  a  poem  which  was  foolishly 
interpreted  at  first  as  an  avowal  of  pes- 
simism, but  which  is  in  fact  a  splendid 
assertion  of  meliorism, — ■ 

Follow  you  the  star  that  lights  a  desert  pathway  yonrs 

or  mine, 
Follow  till  you  see  the  highest  human  nature  is  Divine ; 

Follow  light  and  do  the  right,  —  for  man  can  half  con- 
trol his  doom,  — 

Follow  till  you  see  the  deathless  angel  seated  in  the 
vacant  tomb  1 

Finally,  the  Idylls  bring  out  the  pro- 
found truth  that  there  is  a  vicarious  ele- 
ment in  human  life,  and  that  no  man  lives 
to  himself  alone.     The  characters  are  dis- 


IDYLLS   OF  THE  KING.  217 

tinct,  but  they  are  not  isolated.  They 
are  parts  of  a  vast  organism,  all  bound 
together,  all  influencing  one  another.  The 
victory  of  sense  over  soul  is  not  a  solitary 
triumph ;  it  has  far-reaching  results.  The 
evil  lives  of  Modred,  of  Vivien,  of  Tris- 
tram, spread  like  a  poison  through  the 
court.  But  no  less  fruitful,  no  less  far- 
reaching,  is  the  victory  of  soul  over  sense. 
Gareth,  and  Enid,  and  Balan,  and  Bors, 
and  Bedivere,  and  Galahad,  have  power  to 
help  and  to  uplift  others  out  of  the  lower 
life.  Their  lives  are  not  wasted :  nor 
does  Arthur  himself  live  in  vain,  though 
his  Round  Table  is  dissolved:  for  he  is 
"joined  to  her  that  is  the  fairest  under 
heaven,"  not  for  a  time  only,  but  forever. 
His  faith  triumphs  over  her  sin.  Guin- 
evere is  not  lost ;  she  is  redeemed  by  love. 
From  the  darkness  of  the  convent  at 
Almesbury,  where  she  lies  weeping  in  the 
dust,  we  hear  a  voice  like  that  which 
thrills  through  the  prison  of  Marguerite 
in  Faust.  The  fiend  mutters,  Sie  ht 
gerichtet!  But  the  angel  cries,  Sie  ist 
gerettet  J 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY. 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY. 

The  appearance  of  Tennyson,  in  1875,  as 
a  dramatic  poet  was  a  surprise.  It  is  true 
that  he  had  already  shown  that  his  genius 
was  versatile  and  disposed  to  explore  new 
methods  of  expression.  True,  also,  that 
from  the  year  1842  a  strong  dramatic  ten- 
dency had  been  manifest  in  his  works. 
Ulysses,  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  Love  and 
Duty,  Lochsley  Hall,  Lucretius,JThe  North- 
ern Farmer,  The  Grandmother,  different 
as  they  are  in  style,  are  all  essentially 
dramatic  monologues.  Maud  is  rightly  en- 
titled, in  the  late  editions,  a  Monodrama. 
The  Princess  has  been  put  upon  the  ama- 
teur stage  in  veiy  pretty  fashion ;  and  the 
success  of  Mr.  George  Parsons  Lathrop's 
fine  acting  version  of  Elaine  proved  not 
only  his  own  ability,  but  also  the  high  dra- 
matic quality  of  that  splendid  Idyll. 

But  not  even  these  hints  that  Tennyson 
had  a  creative  impulse  not  yet  fully  satisfied 
were  clear  enough  to  prepare  the  world  for 
his  attempt  to  conquer  another  form  of  art. 


222  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

He  was  acknowledged  as  a  consummate  mas- 
ter of  lyric  and  idyllic  poetry.  People  were 
not  ready  to  see  him  come  out  in  the  seventh 
decade  of  his  life  in  a  new  character,  and 
take  the  stage  as  a  dramatist.  It  seemed  like 
a  rash  attempt  to  become  the  rival  of  his 
own  fame. 

The  first  feeling  of  the  public  at  the  pro- 
duction of  Queen  Mary  was  undisguised 
astonishment.  And  with  this  a  good  deal 
of  displeasure  was  mingled.  For  the  public, 
after  all,  is  not  fond  of  surprises.  Having 
formed  its  opinion  of  a  great  man,  and 
labelled  him  once  for  all  as  a  sweet  singer, 
or  a  sound  moralist,  or  a  brilliant  word- 
painter,  or  an  interesting  story-teller,  it 
loves  not  to  consider  him  in  any  other 
light.  It  is  confused  and  puzzled.  The 
commonplaces  of  easy  criticism  become  un- 
available for  further  use.  People  shrink 
from  the  effort  which  is  required  for  a  new 
and  candid  judgment ;  and  so  they  fall  back 
upon  stale  and  unreasonable  comparisons. 
They  say,  "  Why  d«es  the  excellent  cobbler 
go  beyond  his  last  ?  The  old  songs  were 
admirable.  Why  does  not  the  poet  give  us 
more  of  them,  instead  of  trying  us  with  a 
new  play  ?  " 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  223 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  Queen  Mary 
was  received  with  general  dissatisfaction; 
respectful,  of  course,  because  it  was  the  work 
of  a  famous  man ;  but  upon  the  whole  the 
public  was  largely  indifferent,  and  said  in  a 
tone  of  polite  authority  that  it  was  not  nearly 
so  powerful  as  Hamlet  or  Macbeth,  nor  so 
melodious  even  as  CEnone  and  The  Lotos- 
Eaters.  A  like  fate  befell  Harold  in  1877, 
except  that  a  few  critics  began  to  feel  the 
scruples  of  literary  conscience,  and  made  an 
honest  effort  to  judge  the  drama  on  its  own 
merits. 

The  Falcon,  a  play  founded  upon  Boccac- 
cio's well-known  story,  was  produced  in 
1879,  and  the  accomplished  Mrs.  Kendal,  as 
the  heroine,  made  it  at  least  a  partial  suc- 
cess. In  1881  The  Cap,  a  dramatization  of 
an  incident  narrated  in  Plutarch's  treatise 
He  Mulierum  Virtutibus,  was  brought  out  at 
the  Lyceum  with  Mr.  Henry  Irving  and 
Miss  Ellen  Terry  in  the  principal  roles.  It 
received  hearty  and  general  applause,  and 
was  by  far  the  most  popular  of  Tennyson's 
dramas.  But  its  effect  upon  his  fame  as  a 
playwright  was  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  grievous  failure  of  The  Promise  of 
May  in  1882.     This  piece  was  intended  to 


224  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

be  an  exposure  of  the  pernicious  influences 
of  modern  secularism.  It  was  upon  the 
whole  a  most  dismal  bit  of  work ;  and  not 
even  the  eccentric  conduct  of  the  infidel 
Marquis  of  Queensbury,  who  rose  from  his 
seat  at  one  of  the  performances  and  violently 
protested  against  the  play  as  a  libel  upon 
the  free-thinkers  of  England,  availed  to  give 
it  more  than  a  momentary  notoriety.  At 
the  close  of  the  year  1884  Tennyson  pub- 
lished the  longest  and  most  ambitious  of  his 
dramas,  Becket,  with  a  distinct  avowal  that 
it  was  "  not  intended  in  its  present  form  to 
meet  the  exigencies  of  the  modern  stage." 

The  wisdom  of  this  limitation  is  evident. 
It  contains  also  a  shrewd  hint  of  criticism 
on  the  present  taste  of  the  average  British 
play-goer.  There  is  a  demand  for  pungent 
realism,  for  startling  effect,  for  exaggerated 
action  easy  to  be  followed,  and  for  a  sharp 
ciimax  in  a  striking  tableau,  —  in  short,  for 
a  play  which  stings  the  nerves  without  tax- 
ing the  mind.  Even  Shakspere  has  to  be 
revised  to  meet  these  exigencies.  To  win 
success  nowadays  he  must  take  the  stage- 
manager  into  partnership.  I  suppose,  when 
Becket  is  acted,  it  must  submit  to  these  con- 
ditions.    But   meantime  there   is   a  higher 


THE  HISTORIC   TRILOGY.  225 

standard.  We  may  consider  Queen  Mary, 
Harold,  and  Becket,  from  another  point  of 
view,  as  dramas  not  for  acting,  but  for  reading. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  consideration  is  a 
debt  of  honour  which  we  owe  to  the  poet. 
These  tragedies  are  not  to  be  dismissed  as 
the  mistakes  and  follies  of  an  over-confident 
and  fatally  fluent  genius.  A  poet  like  Ten- 
nyson does  not  make  three  such  mistakes  in 
succession.  They  are  not  the  idle  recrea- 
tions of  one  who  has  finished  his  life-work 
and  retired.  They  are  not  the  feeble  and 
mechanical  productions  of  a  man  in  his 
dotage.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  full  of 
fire  and  force ;  and  if  they  err  at  all  it  is 
on  the  side  of  exuberance.  Their  intensity 
of  passion  and  overflow  of  feeling  make 
them  sometimes  turbulent  and  harsh  and 
incoherent.  They  would  do  more  if  they 
attempted  less.  And  yet  in  spite  of  their 
occasional  overloading  and  confusion  they 
have  a  clear  and  strong  purpose  which 
makes  them  worthy  of  careful  study.  The 
judgment  of  a  critic  so  intelligent  as  George 
Eliot  is  not  to  be  disregarded,  and  she  has 
expressed  her  opinion  that  "  Tennyson's 
plays  run  Shakspere's  close." 

The  point  of  view  from  which  they  must 


226  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

be  regarded  is  that  of  historical  tragedy.  By 
this  I  mean  a  tragedy  which  involves  not 
only  individuals,  but  political  parties  and 
warring  classes  of  society.  Its  object  is  to 
trace  the  fate  of  individuals  as  it  affects  the 
fate  of  nations ;  to  exhibit  the  conflict  of  op- 
posing characters  not  for  themselves  alone, 
but  as  the  exponents  of  those  great  popular 
forces  and  movements  which  play  beneath  the 
surface ;  to  throw  the  vivid  colours  of  life 
into  the  black  and  white  outlines  on  the 
screen  of  history  and  show  that  the  figures 
are  not  mere  shadows  but  human  beings  of 
like  passions  with  ourselves. 

Tennyson's  dramatic  trilogy  is  a  picture 
of  the  Making  of  England.  The  three 
periods  of  action  are  chosen  with  the  design 
of  touching  the  most  critical  points  of  the 
long  struggle.  The  three  plots  are  so  de- 
veloped as  to  bring  into  prominence  the 
vital  issues  of  the  strife.  And  the  different 
characters,  almost  without  exception,  are  ex- 
hibited as  the  representatives  of  the  different 
races  and  classes  and  faiths  which  were  con- 
tending for  supremacy.  Let  us  take  up  the 
plays  in  their  historical  order. 

In  Harold  we  see  the  close  of  that  fierce 
triangular  duel    between   the    Saxons,    the 


TEE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  227 

Danes,  and  the  Normans,  which  resulted  in 
the  Norman  conquest  and  the  binding  of 
England,  still  Saxon  at  heart,  to  the  civili- 
zation of  the  Continent.  The  crisis  of  the 
drama  is  the  second  scene  of  the  second  act, 
where  Harold,  a  prisoner  in  the  Palace  of 
Bayeux,  is  cajoled  and  threatened  and  de- 
ceived by  William  to  swear  an  oath  to  help 
him  to  the  crown  of  England.  The  fierce 
subtlety  of  the  Norman  is  matched  against 
the  heroic  simplicity  and  frankness  of  the 
Saxon.  Craft  triumphs.  Harold  discovers 
that  he  has  sworn,  not  merely  by  the  jewel 
of  St.  Pancratius,  on  which  his  hand  was  laid, 
but  by  the  sacred  bones  of  all  the  saints  con- 
cealed beneath  it,  —  an  oath  which  admits 
of  no  evasion,  the  breaking  of  which  after- 
wards breaks  his  faith  in  himself  and  makes 
him  fight  the  battle  of  Senlac  as  a  man  fore- 
doomed to  death.  Both  William  and  Har- 
old are  superstitious.  But  William's  super- 
stition is  of  a  kind  which  enables  him  to  use 
religion  as  his  tool ;  Harold's  goes  only  far 
enough  to  weaken  his  heart  and  make  him 
tremble  before  the  monk  even  while  he  de- 
fies him.  Harold  is  the  better  man ;  Wil- 
liam is  the  wiser  ruler.  His  words  over  the 
body  of  his  fallen  rival  on  the  battlefield 


228  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

are  prophetic  of  the  result  of  the  Norman 
conquest :  — 

Since  I  knew  battle, 
And  that  was  from  my  boyhood,  never  yet  — 
No,  by  the  splendour  of  God  —  have  I  fought  men 
Like  Harold  and  his  brethren  and  his  guard 
Of  English.     Every  man  about  his  king  4 
Fell  where  he  stood.     They  loved  him :  and  pray  God 
My  Normans  may  but  move  as  true  with  me 
To  the  door  of  death.     Of  one  self -stock  at  first, 
Make  them  again  one  people  —  Norman,  English ; 
And  English,  Norman ;  —  we  should  have  a  hand 
To  grasp  the  world  with,  and  a  foot  to  stamp  it  .  .  . 
Flat.     Praise  the  Saints.     It  is  over.     No  more  blood ! 
I  am  king  of  England,  so  they  thwart  me  not, 
And  I  will  rule  according  to  their  laws. 

It  is  worth  while  to  remember,  in  this  con- 
nection, that  Tennyson  himself  is  of  Nor- 
man descent.  Yet  surely  there  never  was 
a  man  more  thoroughly  English  than  he. 

In  Becket  we  are  made  spectators  of  a 
conflict  less  familiar,  but  more  interesting 
and  important,  —  the  conflict  between  the 
church  and  the  crown,  between  the  ecclesias- 
tical and  the  royal  prerogatives,  which  shook 
England  to  the  centre  for  many  years,  and 
out  of  the  issues  of  which  her  present  consti- 
tution has  grown. 

In  this  conflict  the  Papacy  played  a  much 
smaller  part  than  we  usually  imagine ;  and 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  229 

religion,  until  the  closing  scenes,  played 
practically  no  part  at  all.  It  was  in  fact  a 
struggle  for  supreme  authority  in  temporal 
affairs.  First  the  king  was  contending 
against  the  nobility,  and  the  church  took 
sides  with  the  king.  Then  the  king  at- 
tempted to  subjugate  the  people,  and  the 
church,  having  become  profoundly  English, 
took  sides  with  the  people.  Then  the  nobles 
combined  against  the  king,  and  the  church 
took  sides  with  the  nobles.  Then  the  king 
revolted  from  the  foreign  domination  of  the 
church,  and  the  people  took  sides  with  the 
king.  Then  the  king  endeavoured  to  use 
the  church  to  crush  the  people,  and  the  peo- 
ple under  Cromwell  rose  against  church  and 
king  and  broke  the  double  yoke.  Then  the 
people  brought  back  the  king,  and  he  tried 
to  reinstate  the  church  as  an  instrument  of 
royal  absolutism.  But  the  day  for  that  was 
past.  After  another  struggle,  prolonged  and 
bitter,  but  in  the  main  bloodless,  the  Eng- 
lish church  lost  almost  the  last  vestige  of 
temporal  authority,  and  the  English  king- 
dom became  simply  "  a  crowned  republic." 

Now  the  point  at  which  Becket  touches 
this  long  conflict  is  the  second  stage.  King 
Henry    II.,    Count    of    Anjou,    surnamed 


230         THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

"  Plantagenet,"  owed  his  throne  to  the 
church.  It  was  the  influence  of  the  English 
bishops,  especially  of  Theobald,  Anselm's 
great  successor  in  the  See  of  Canterbury, 
which  secured  Henry's  succession  to  the 
crown  of  his  uncle  and  enemy,  King 
Stephen.  But  the  wild,  wicked  blood  of 
Anjou  was  too  strong  in  Henry  for  him  to 
remain  faithful  to  such  an  alliance.  He 
was  a  thoroughly  irreligious  man :  not  only 
dissolute  in  life  and  cruel  in  temper,  but 
also  destitute  of  the  sense  of  reverence, 
which  sometimes  exists  even  in  immoral 
men.  He  spent  his  time  at  church  in  look- 
ing at  picture-books  and  whispering  with 
his  friends.  He  despised  and  neglected  the 
confessional.  He  broke  out,  in  his  pas- 
sionate fits,  with  the  wildest  imprecations 
against  God.  The  fellowship  of  the  church 
was  distasteful  to  him ;  and  even  the  bond 
of  gratitude  to  so  good  a  man  as  Archbishop 
Theobald  was  too  irksome  to  be  borne. 

Moreover  he  had  gotten  from  the  church 
all  that  he  wanted.  He  was  now  the  most 
mighty  monarch  in  Christendom.  His  foot 
was  on  the  neck  of  the  nobles.  The  royal 
power  had  broken  down  the  feudal,  and 
stood  face  to  face  with  the  ecclesiastical,  as 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  231 

its  only  rival.  The  English  Church,  whose 
prerogative  made  her  in  effect  the  supreme 
judge  and  ruler  over  all  the  educated  classes 
(that  is  to  say  over  all  who  could  read  and 
write  and  were  thus  entitled  to  claim  "  the 
benefit  of  the  clergy  "),  was  the  only  barrier 
in  Henry's  path  to  an  unlimited  monarchy. 
He  resolved  that  this  obstacle  must  be  re- 
moved. He  would  brook  no  rivalry  in  Eng- 
land, not  even  in  the  name  of  God.  And 
therefore  he  thrust  his  bosom-friend,  his 
boon  -  companion,  his  splendid  chancellor, 
Thomas  Becket,  into  the  Archbishopric  of 
Canterbury,  hoping  to  find  in  him  a  willing 
and  skilful  ally  in  the  subjugation  of  the 
church  to  the  throne.  Becket's  rebellion 
and  Henry's  wrath  form  the  plot  of  Tenny- 
son's longest  and  greatest  drama. 

The  character  of  Becket  is  one  of  the 
standing  riddles  of  history.  He  compels  our 
admiration  by  his  strength,  his  audacity,  his 
success  in  everything  that  he  undertook.  He 
is  one  of  those  men  who  are  so  intensely 
virile  that  they  remain  alive  after  they  are 
dead :  we  cannot  be  indifferent  to  him :  we 
are  for  him  or  agrainst  him.  At  the  same 
time  he  perplexes  us  and  stimulates  our 
wonder  to  the  highest  pitch  by  the  consistent 


232         TEE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

inconsistencies  and  harmonious  contradic- 
tions of  his  character.  The  son  of  an  ob- 
scure London  merchant ;  the  proudest  and 
most  accomplished  of  England's  chivalrous 
youth  ;  a  student  of  theology  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Paris ;  the  favourite  pupil  of  the  good 
Archbishop  Theobald ;  the  boon-companion 
of  the  riotous  King  Henry ;  a  skilful  diploma- 
tist ;  the  best  horseman  and  boldest  knight 
of  the  court ;  the  hatred  of  the  nobles,  and 
the  delight  of  the  peasantry  ;  the  most  lavish 
and  luxurious,  the  most  chaste  and  laborious, 
of  English  grandees;  the  most  devout  and 
ascetic,  the  most  ambitious  and  the  least  self- 
ish, of  English  bishops;  as  unwearied  in 
lashing  his  own  back  with  the  scourge  as  he 
had  been  in  smiting  his  country's  enemies 
with  the  sword ;  as  much  at  home  in  sack- 
cloth as  in  purple  and  fine  linen  ;  the  prince 
of  dandies  and  of  devotees  ;  the  king's  most 
faithful  servant  and  most  daring  rival,  most 
darling  friend  and  most  relentless  foe,  — 
what  was  this  Becket  ?  hero  or  villain  ? 
martyr  or  criminal?  true  man  or  traitor? 
worldling  or  saint  ? 

Tennyson  gives  us  the  key  to  the  riddle  in 
the  opening  scene  of  the  drama.  The  King 
and  Becket  are  playing  at  chess.   The  King's 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  233 

fancy  is  wandering ;  he  is  thinking  and 
talking  of  a  hundred  different  things.  But 
Becket  is  intent  upon  the  game ;  he  cannot 
bear  to  do  anything  which  he  does  not  do 
well ;  he  pushes  steadily  forward  and  wins. 

I  think  this  scene  gives  us  the  secret  of 
Becket's  personality.  An  eager  desire  to  be 
perfect  in  whatever  part  he  played,  an  im- 
pulse to  lead  and  conquer  in  every  sphere 
that  he  entered,  —  this  was  what  Henry 
failed  to  understand.  He  did  not  see  that 
in  transforming  this  intense  and  absolute 
man  from  a  chancellor  into  an  archbishop, 
he  was  thrusting  him  into  a  new  part  in 
which  his  passion  for  thoroughness  would 
make  him  live  up  to  all  its  requirements 
and  become  the  most  inflexible  defender  of 
the  church  against  the  encroachment  of  the 
throne. 

But  Becket  understood  himself  and  fore- 
saw the  conflict  into  which  the  King's  plan 
would  plunge  him.  He  knew  that  for  him 
a  change  of  relations  meant  a  change  of 
character.  He  resisted  the  promotion.  Ten- 
nyson depicts  most  graphically  the  struggle 
in  his  mind.  When  Henry  first  broaches 
the  subject,  Becket  answers : 


234         THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

Mock  me  not.     I  am  not  even  a  monk. 

Thy  jest  —  no  more !     Why,  look,  is  this  a  sleeve 

For  an  archbishop  ? 

But  Henry  lays  his  hand  on  the  richly  em- 
broidered garment,  and  says : 

But  the  arm  within 
Is  Bucket's  who  hath  beaten  down  my  foes. 
I  lack  a  spiritual  soldier,  Thomas, 
A  man  of  this  world  and  the  next  to  boot. 

Now  this  is  just  what  Thomas  can  never  be. 
To  either  world  he  can  belong,  but  not  to 
both.  He  can  change,  but  he  cannot  com- 
promise. While  he  is  the  defender  of  the 
throne  he  is  serviceable  and  devoted  to  the 
King ;  when  he  becomes  the  leader  of  the 
Church  he  will  be  equally  absorbed  in  her 
service. 

The  drama  exhibits  this  strange  transfor- 
mation and  its  consequences.  Forced  by  the 
urgency  of  the  headstrong  King,  and  per- 
suaded by  a  message  from  the  death-bed  of 
his  former  friend  and  master  Theobald, 
Becket  yields  at  last  and  accepts  the  mitre. 
From  this  moment  he  is  another  man.  With 
all  his  doubts  as  to  his  fitness  for  the  sacred 
office,  he  has  now  given  himself  up  to  it, 
heart  and  soul.  The  tremendous  mediaeval 
idea  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  the  visible 
kingdom  of  God  upon  earth  takes  possession 


THE  HISTORIC    TRILOGY.  235 

of  him.  He  sees  also  that  the  issue  of  the 
political  conflict  in  England  depends  upon 
the  church,  which  is  the  people's  "  tower  of 
strength,  their  bulwark  against  Throne  and 
Baronage."  He  feels  that  he  is  called  to  be 
the  champion  of  the  cause  of  God  and  the 
people. 

I  am  the  man. 
And  yet  I  seem  appall' d,  — on  such  a  sudden 
At  such  an  eagle  height  I  stand,  and  see 
The  rift  that  runs  between  me  and  the  king. 
I  serv'd  our  Theobald  well  when  I  was  with  him; 
I  serv'd  King  Henry  well  when  I  was  Chancellor; 
I  am  his  no  more,  and  I  must  serve  the  church. 
And  all  my  doubts  I  fling  from  me  like  dust, 
Winnow  and  scatter  all  scruples  to  the  wind, 
And  all  the  puissance  of  the  warrior, 
And  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Chancellor, 
And  all  the  heap'd  experiences  of  life, 
I  cast  upon  the  side  of  Canterbury,  — 
Our  holy  mother  Canterbury,  who  sits 
With  tatter' d  robes. 

Here 
I  gash  myself  asunder  from  the  king, 
Though  leaving  each  a  wound :  mine  own,  a  grief 
To  show  the  scar  forever  —  his,  a  hate 
Not  ever  to  be  healed. 

Both  of  these  predictions  are  fulfilled :  and 
herein  lies  the  interest  of  the  drama.  All 
through  the  conflict  between  the  monarch 
and  the  prelate,    Becket's  inflexible  resist- 


236         THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

ance  to  the  royal  commands  is  maintained 
only  at  the  cost  of  a  perpetual  struggle 
with  his  great  personal  love  for  Henry, 
and  Henry's  resolve  to  conquer  the  stub- 
born archbishop  is  inflamed  and  embittered 
by  the  thought  that  Becket  was  once  his 
dearest  comrade.  It  is  a  tragic  situation. 
Tennyson  has  never  shown  a  deeper  insight 
into  human  nature,  than  by  making  this 
single  combat  between  divided  friends  the 
turning-point  of  his  drama. 

The  tragedy  is  enhanced  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  Rosamund  de  Clifford  —  the  King's 

One  sweet  rose  of  the  world. 

Her  beauty,  her  innocence,  the  childlike  con- 
fidence of  her  affection  for  the  fierce  mon- 
arch, who  is  gentle  only  with  her  and  whom 
she  loves  as  her  true  husband,  her  songs  and 
merry  games  with  her  little  boy  in  the  hid- 
den bower,  fall  like  gleams  of  summer  sun- 
light into  the  stormy  gloom  of  the  play. 

Becket  becomes  her  guardian  and  protec- 
tor against  the  cruel,  murderous  jealousy  of 
Queen  Eleanor.  A  most  perilous  position : 
a  priest  charged  by  the  King  whom  he  is  re- 
sisting with  the  duty  of  defending  and  guard- 
ing the  loveliest  of  women,  and  keeping  her 
safe  and  secret  for  a  master  whom  he  cannot 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  237 

but  condemn.  What  a  conflict  of  duty  and 
desire,  of  conscience  and  loyalty,  of  passion 
and  friendship !  How  did  Becket  meet  it  ? 
Did  he  love  Rosamund?  Would  he  have 
loved  her  if  he  had  not  been  bound  by 
straiter  vows  ?  Was  there  anything  of  dis- 
loyalty in  his  persuading  her  to  flee  from 
her  bower  and  take  refuge  with  the  nuns  at 
Godstow  ?  Tennyson  thinks  not.  He  paints 
his  hero  as  a  man  true  to  his  duty  even  in 
this  sharpest  trial ;  upright,  steadfast,  fear- 
less, seeking  only  to  save  the  woman  whom 
his  former  master  loved,  and  to  serve  the 
King  even  while  seeming  to  disobey  him. 
But  Henry  cannot  believe  it.  When  he 
hears  of  Rosamund's  flight,  his  anger  against 
Becket  is  poisoned  with  the  madness  of  jeal- 
ousy. He  breaks  out  with  a  cry  of  fierce 
desire  for  his  death.  And  at  this  hint,  four 
of  the  Barons,  who  have  long  hated  Becket, 
set  out  to  assassinate  him. 

The  final  scene  in  the  Cathedral  is  full  of 
strength  and  splendour.  Even  here  a  ray 
of  sweetness  falls  into  the  gloom,  in  the 
presence  of  Rosamund,  praying  for  Becket 
in  his  perils :  — 

Save  that  dear  head  which  now  is  Canterbury, 
Save  him,  he  saved  my  life,  he  saved  my  child, 


238         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Save  him,  his  blood  would  darken  Henry's  name, 
Save  him,  till  all  as  saintly  as  thyself, 
He  miss  the  searching  flame  of  Purgatory, 
And  pass  at  once  to  perfect  Paradise. 

But  the  end  is  inevitable.  Becket  meets  it 
as  fearlessly  as  he  has  lived,  crying  as  the 
blows  of  the  assassins  fall  upon  him  before 
the  altar,  — 

At  the  right  hand  of  Power  — 
Power  and  great  glory  —  for  thy  church,  O  Lord  — 
Into  thy  hands,  O  Lord  —  into  thy  hands  — 

Two  years  afterwards,  he  was  canonized  as 
a  saint.  His  tomb  became  the  richest  and 
most  popular  of  English  shrines.  King 
Henry  himself  came  to  it  as  a  pilgrim,  and 
submitted  to  public  penance  at  the  grave  of 
the  man  who  was  too  strong  for  him,  even  in 
death.  The  homage  of  the  nation  may  not 
prove  that  Becket  was  a  holy  martyr,  but  at 
least  it  proves  that  he  was  one  of  the  first 
of  those  great  Englishmen  "  who  taught  the 
people  to  struggle  for  their  liberties,"  and 
that  Tennyson  was  right  in  choosing  this 
man  as  the  hero  of  his  noblest  historic 
drama. 

In  Queen  3fary,  we  are  called  to  watch 
the  third  great  conflict  of  England.  Church 
and  people  have  triumphed.     It  has  already 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  239 

become  clear  that  the  English  throne  muse 
be 

Broad-bas'd  npon  the  people's  will, 

and  that  religion  will  be  a  controlling  influ- 
ence in  the  life  of  the  nation.  But  what 
type  of  religion?  The  Papacy  and  the 
Reformation  have  crossed  swords  and  are 
struggling  together  for  the  possession  of  the 
sea-girt  island.  How  sharp  was  the  contest, 
how  near  the  friends  of  Spain  and  Italy 
came  to  winning  the  victory  over  the  friends 
of  Germany  and  Holland  and  Switzerland, 
Tennyson  has  shown  in  his  vivid  picture  of 
Mary's  reign. 

The  characters  are  sharply  drawn.  .Philip, 
with  his  icy  sensuality  and  gigantic  egotism  ; 
Gardiner  with  his  coarse  ferocity, 

His  big  baldness, 
That  irritable  forelock  which  he  rubs, 
His  buzzard  beak,  and  deep  incavern'd  eyes ; 

Reginald  Pole,  the  suave,  timorous,  selfish 
ecclesiastic;  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  and  Sir 
Ralph  Bagenhall,  brave,  steadfast,  honest 
men,  English  to  the  core ;  Cranmer  with 
his  moments  of  weakness  and  faltering,  well 
atoned  for  by  his  deep  faith  and  humble  pen- 
itence and  heroic  martyrdom ;  all  these  stand 
out  before  us  like  living  figures  against  the 


240         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

background  of  diplomatic  intrigue  and  popu- 
lar tumult.  And  Mary  herself,  —  never  has 
that  unhappy  queen,  the  victim  of  her  own 
intense,  passionate  delusions,  had  such  jus- 
tice done  to  her.  She  came  near  to  wreck- 
ing England.  Tennyson  does  not  let  us 
forget  that ;  but  he  softens  our  hatred  and 
our  horror  with  a  touch  of  human  pity  for 
her  own  self-wreck  as  he  shows  her  sitting 
upon  the  ground,  desolate  and  desperate, 
moaning  for  the  treacherous  Philip  in 

A  low  voice 
Lost  in  a  -wilderness  where  none  can  hear ! 
A  voice  of  shipwreck  on  a  shoreless  sea ! 
A  low  voice  from  the  dust  and  from  the  grave. 

The   drama   which   most   naturally   invites 

comparison   with     Queen   Mary    is    Shak- 

spere's  Henry  VIII.     And  it  seems  to  me 

that  if  we  lay  the  two  works  side  by  side, 

Tennyson's   does    not   suffer   even   by  this 

hazardous  propinquity.     Take  the  song  of 

Queen  Catherine: 

Orpheus  with  his  lute  made  trees 
And  the  mountain-tops  that  freeze 

Bow  themselves  when  he  did  sing  : 
To  his  music  plants  and  flowers 
Ever  sprang ;  as  Sun  and  showers 

There  had  made  a  lasting  spring. 

Everything  that  heard  him  play 
Even  the  billows  of  the  sea 

Hung  their  heads  and  then  lay  hy. 


THE  HISTORIC  TRILOGY.  241 

In  sweet  music  is  such  art, 
Killing  care  and  grief  of  heart 
Fall  asleep,  or,  hearing,  die. 

And  then  read  Queen  Mary's  song :  — 

Hapless  doom  of  woman  happy  in  betrothing  I 
Beauty  passes  like  a  breath  and  love  is  lost  iu  loathing : 
Low,  my  lute  :  speak  low,  my  lute,  but  say  the  world 
is  nothing  — 
Low,  lute,  low! 

Love  will  hover  round  the  flowers  when  they  first 

awaken ; 
Love  will  fly  the  fallen  leaf  and  not  be  overtaken : 
Low,   my  lute  I  oh  low,  my  lute !  we  fade  and  are 

forsaken  — 

Low,  dear  lute,  low ! 

Surely  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this 
is  infinitely  more  pathetic  as  well  as  more 
musical  than  Shakspere's  stiff  little  lyric. 

Or  if  this  comparison  seem  unfair,  then 
try  the  two  dramas  by  their  strength  of 
character-painting.  Is  not  Tennyson's  Philip 
as  vivid  and  as  consistent  as  Shakspere's 
Henry?  Does  not  the  later  Gardiner  stand 
out  more  clearly  than  the  earlier,  and  the 
younger  Howard  surpass  the  elder  ?  Is  not 
the  legate  Pole  more  lifelike  than  the  legate 
Campeius?  Is  not  Cecil's  description  of 
Elizabeth  more  true  and  sharp,  thoug';  1 
high-flown,  than  Cranmer's  ?  We  must  ad- 
mit that  there  are  "  purple  patches  "  of  elo- 


242         THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

quence,  like  Wolsey's  famous  speech  upon 
ambition,  in  Shakspere's  work,  which  are 
unrivalled.  But  taken  altogether,  as  an 
historic  drama,  Queen  Mary  must  rank  not 
below,  perhaps  even  above,  Henry  VIII. 

The  systematic  undervaluation  of  Tenny- 
son's dramatic  work  is  a  reproach  to  the  in- 
telligence of  our  critics.  J.  R.  Green,  the 
late  historian  of  The  English  People,  said 
that  "  all  his  researches  into  the  annals  of  the 
twelfth  century  had  not  given  him  so  vivid 
a  conception  of  the  character  of  Henry  II. 
and  his  court  as  was  embodied  in  Tenny- 
son's Becket."  Backed  by  an  authority  like 
this  it  is  not  too  daring  to  predict  that  the 
day  is  coming  when  the  study  of  Shak- 
spere's historical  plays  will  be  reckoned  no 
more  important  to  an  understanding  of  Eng- 
lish history  than  the  study  of  Tennyson's 
Trilogy. 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON. 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  no  other 
book  which  has  had  so  great  an  influence 
upon  the  literature  of  the  world  as  the  Bible. 
And  it  is  almost  as  safe  —  at  least  with  no 
greater  danger  than  that  of  starting  an  in- 
structive discussion  —  to  say  that  there  is 
no  other  literature  which  has  felt  this  influ- 
ence so  deeply  or  shown  it  so  clearly  as  the 
English. 

The  cause  of  this  latter  fact  is  not  far  to 
seek.  It  may  be,  as  a  discontented  French 
critic  suggests,  that  it  is  partly  due  to  the 
inborn  and  incorrigible  tendency  of  the  An- 
glo-Saxon mind  to  drag  religion  and  morality 
into  everything.  But  certainly  this  tendency 
would  never  have  taken  such  a  distinctly 
Biblical  form  had  it  not  been  for  the  beauty 
and  vigour  of  our  common  English  version 
of  the  Scriptures.  These  qualities  were  felt 
by  the  people  even  before  they  were  praised 
by  the  critics.  Apart  from  all  religious 
prepossessions,  men  and  women  and  children 


246        TBE  POETRY  OF  TENNTBON. 

were  fascinated  by  the  native  power  and 
grace  of  the  book.  The  English  Bible  was 
popular,  in  the  broadest  sense,  long  before  it 
was  recognized  as  one  of  our  noblest  English 
classics.  It  has  coloured  the  talk  of  the 
household  and  the  street,  as  well  as  moulded 
the  language  of  scholars.  It  has  been  some- 
thing more  than  a  "  well  of  English  unde- 
nted ;  "  it  has  become  a  part  of  the  spiritual 
atmosphere.  We  hear  the  echoes  of  its 
speech  everywhere;  and  the  music  of  its 
familiar  phrases  haunts  all  the  fields  and 
groves  of  our  fine  literature. 

It  is  not  only  to  the  theologians  and  the 
sermon-makers  that  we  look  for  Biblical 
allusions  and  quotations.  "We  often  find  the 
very  best  and  most  vivid  of  them  in  writ- 
ers professedly  secular.  Poets  like  Shak- 
spere,  Milton,  and  Wordsworth ;  novelists 
like  Scott  and  romancers  like  Hawthorne; 
essayists  like  Bacon,  Steele,  and  Addison ; 
critics  of  life,  unsystematic  philosophers,  like 
Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  —  all  draw  upon  the 
Bible  as  a  treasury  of  illustrations,  and  use 
it  as  a  book  equally  familiar  to  themselves 
and  to  their  readers.  It  is  impossible  to 
put  too  high  a  value  upon  such  a  universal 
volume,  even  as  a  mere  literary  possession. 


TME  BIBLE  W  TEtitNtBOIt.  247 

It  forms  a  bond  of  sympathy  between  the 
most  cultivated  and  the  simplest  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  same  book  lies  upon  the  desk  of 
the  scholar  and  in  the  cupboard  of  the  peas- 
ant. If  you  touch  upon  one  of  its  narra- 
tives, every  one  knows  what  you  mean.  If 
you  allude  to  one  of  its  characters  or  scenes, 
your  reader's  memory  supplies  an  instant 
picture  to  illuminate  your  point.  And  so 
long  as  its  words  are  studied  by  little  chil- 
dren at  their  mothers'  knees  and  recognized 
by  high  critics  as  the  model  of  pure  English, 
we  may  be  sure  that  neither  the  jargon  of 
science  nor  the  slang  of  ignorance  will  be 
able  to  create  a  Shibboleth  to  divide  the 
people  of  our  common  race.  There  will  be 
a  medium  of  communication  in  the  language 
and  imagery  of  the  English  Bible. 

This  much,  by  way  of  introduction,  I  have 
felt  it  necessary  to  say,  in  order  to  mark  the 
spirit  of  this  essay.  For  the  poet  whose 
works  we  are  to  study  is  at  once  one  of  the 
most  scholarly  and  one  of  the  most  widely 
popular  of  English  writers.  At  least  one 
cause  of  his  popularity  is  that  there  is  so 
much  of  the  Bible  in  Tennyson.  How  much, 
few  even  of  his  most  ardent  lovers  begin 
to  understand. 


248         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  attempt  has  ever 
been  made  before  to  collect  and  collate  all 
the  Scriptural  allusions  and  quotations  in 
his  works,  and  to  trace  the  golden  threads 
which  he  has  woven  from  that  source  into 
the  woof  of  his  poetry.  The  delight  of 
"fresh  woods  and  pastures  new"  —  so  rare 
in  this  over-explored  age  —  has  thus  been 
mine.  I  have  found  more  than  four  hun- 
dred direct  references  to  the  Bible  in  the 
poems  of  Tennyson ;  and  have  given  a  list 
of  them  in  the  appendix  to  this  book.  This 
may  have  some  value  for  professed  Tenny- 
sonians,  and  for  them  alone  it  is  given.  The 
general  reader  would  find  it  rather  dry  pas- 
turage. But  there  is  an  aspect  of  the  sub- 
ject which  has  a  wider  interest.  And  in 
this  essay  I  want  to  show  how  closely 
Tennyson  has  read  the  Bible,  how  well  he 
understands  it,  how  much  he  owes  to  it, 
and  how  clearly  he  stands  out  as,  in  the 
best  sense,  a  defender  of  the  faith. 

I. 

On  my  table  lies  the  first  publication 
which  bears  the  name  of  Alfred  Tennyson ; 
a  thin  pamphlet,  in  faded  gray  paper,  con- 
taining the  Prolusiones  Academicce,  recited 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  249 

at  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  1829. 
Among  them  is  one  with  the  title :  Timbuc- 
too ;  A  Poem  which  obtained  the  Chancel- 
lor's Medal,  etc.,  by  A.  Tennyson,  of  Trinity 
College. 

On  the  eleventh  page,  in  a  passage  de- 
scribing the  spirit  of  poetry  which  fills  the 
branches  of  the  "  great  vine  of  Fable,"  we 
find  these  lines :  — 

There  is  no  mightier  Spirit  than  I  to  sway 
The  heart  of  man :  and  teach  him  to  attain 
By  shadowing  forth  the  Unattainable ; 
And  step  hy  step  to  scale  the  mighty  stair 
Whose  landing  place  is  wrapped  about  with  clouds 
Of  glory  of  Heaven. 

And  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  stands  this 
foot-note  :  Be  ye  perfect  even  as  your  Father 
in  Heaven  is  perfect. 

This  is  the  earliest  Biblical  allusion  that 
we  can  identify  in  the  writings  of  Tennyson. 
Even  the  most  superficial  glance  will  detect 
its  beauty  and  power.  There  are  few  who 
have  not  felt  the  lofty  attraction  of  the 
teachings  of  Christ,  in  which  the  ideal  of 
holiness  shines  so  far  above  our  reach,  while 
we  are  continually  impelled  to  climb  to- 
wards it.  Especially  these  very  words  about 
perfection,  which  He  spoke  in  the  Sermon 


250  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

on  the  Mount,  have  often  lifted  us  upward 
just  because  they  point  our  aspirations  to  a 
goal  so  high  that  it  seems  inaccessible.  The 
young  poet  who  sets  a  jewel  like  this  in  his 
earliest  work  shows  not  only  that  he  has 
understood  the  moral  sublimity  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ,  but  also  that  he  has  rightly 
conceived  the  mission  of  noble  poetry,  —  to 
idealize  human  life.  Once  and  again  in  his 
later  writings  we  see  the  same  picture  of 
the  soul  rising  step  by  step 

To  higher  things ; 

and  catch  a  glimpse  of  those  vast  altar-stairs 

That  slope  through  darkness  up  to.  God. 

In  the  poem  entitled  Isabel  —  one  of  the 
best  in  the  slender  volume  of  1830  —  there 
is  a  line  which  reminds  us  that  Tennyson 
must  have  known  his  New  Testament  in  the 
original  language.  He  says  that  all  the 
fairest  forms  of  nature  are  types  of  the 
noble  woman  whom  he  is  describing,  — 

And  thou  of  God  in  thy  great  charity. 

No  one  who  was  not  familiar  with  the  Greek 
of  St.  Paid  and  St.  John  would  have  been 
bold  enough  to  speak  of  the  "charity  of 
God."  It  is  a  phrase  which  throws  a  golden 
light  upon  the   thirteenth  chapter   of  the 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  251 

First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and  brings 
the  human  love  into  harmony  and  union 
with  the  divine. 

The  May  Queen  is  a  poem  which  has 
sung  itself  into  the  hearts  of  the  people 
everywhere.  .The  tenderness  of  its  senti- 
ment and  the  exquisite  cadence  of  its  music 
have  made  it  beloved  in  spite  of  its  many 
faults.  Yet  I  suppose  that  the  majority  of 
readers  have  read  it  again  and  again,  with- 
out recognizing  that  one  of  its  most  melo- 
dious verses  is  a  direct  quotation  from  the 
third  chapter  of  Job. 

And  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary  art 
at  rest. 

This  is  one  of  the  instances  —  by  no  means 
rare  —  in  which  the  translators  of  our  Eng- 
lish Bible  have  fallen  unconsciously  into  the 
rhythm  of  the  most  perfect  poetry  ;  and  it  is 
perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  Tennyson's 
felicitous  use  of  the  very  words  of  Scripture. 
There  are  others,  hardly  less  perfect,  in 
the  wonderful  seTmon  which  the  Rector 
in  Aylmer's  Field  delivers  after  the  death 
of  Edith  and  Leolin.  It  is  a  mosaic  of 
Bible  language,  most  curiously  wrought,  and 
fused  into  one  living  whole  by  the  heat  of 
an  intense  sorrow.     How  like  a  heavy,  dull 


252  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

refrain  of  prophetic  grief  and  indignation 
recurs  the  dreadful  text, 

Your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate. 

The  solemn  association  of  the  words  lends  the 
force  of  a  superhuman  and  unimpassioned 
wrath  to  the  preacher's  language,  and  the 
passage  stands  as  a  monumental  denuncia- 
tion of 

The  social  wants  that  sin  against  the  strength  of  youth. 

Enoch  Arden's  parting  words  to  his  wife 
contain  some  beautiful  fragments  of  Scrip- 
ture embedded  in  the  verse : 

Cast  all  your  cares  on  God ;  that  anchor  holds. 
Is  He  not  yonder  in  the  uttermost 
Parts  of  the  morning  ?     If  I  flee  to  these 
Can  I  go  from  Him  ?  and  the  sea  is  His, 
The  sea  is  His :  He  made  it. 

The  Idylls  of  the  King  are  full  of  deli- 
cate and  suggestive  allusions  to  the  Bible. 
Take  for  instance  the  lines  from  the  Holy 
Grail :  — 

When  the  Lord  of  all  things  made  Himself 
Naked  of  glory  for  His  mortal  change. 

Here  is  a  commentary  most  illuminative,  on 
the  fifth  and  sixth  verses  of  the  second  chap- 
ter of  Philippians.  Or  again,  in  the  same 
Idyll,  where  the  hermit  says  to  Sir  Perci- 
vale,  after  his  unsuccessful  quest,  — 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  '253 

Thou  hast  not  lost  thyself  to  find  thyself, 

we  are  reminded  of  the  words  of  Christ  and 
the  secret  of  all  victory  in  spiritual  things : 
He  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it. 

In  The  Coming  of  Arthur,  while  the 
trumpet  blows  and  the  city  seems  on  fire 
with  sunlight  dazzling  on  cloth  of  gold,  the 
long  procession  of  knights  pass  before  the 
King,  singing  their  great  song  of  allegiance. 
It  is  full  of  warrior's  pride  and  delight 
of  battle,  clanging  battle-axe  and  flashing 
brand,  —  a  true  song  for  the  heavy  fighters 
of  the  days  of  chivalry.  But  it  has  also  a 
higher  touch,  a  strain  of  spiritual  grandeur, 
which  although  it  may  have  no  justification 
in  an  historical  picture  of  the  Round  Table, 
yet  serves  to  lift  these  knights  of  the  poet's 
imagination  up  into  an  ideal  realm  and  set 
them  marching  as  ghostly  heroes  of  faith 
and  loyalty  through  all  ages. 

The  King  will  follow  Christ,  and  we  the  King. 

Compare  this  line  with  the  words  of  St. 
Paul:  Be  ye  followers  of  me  even  as  I  also 
am  of  Christ.  They  teach  us  that  the  last- 
ing devotion  of  men  is  rendered  not  to  the 
human,  but  to  the  divine,  in  their  heroes. 
He  who  would  lead  others  must  first  learn 


254  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

to  follow  One  who  is  higher  than  himself. 
Without  faith  it  is  not  only  impossible  to 
please  God,  but  also  impossible  to  rule  men. 
King  Arthur  is  the  ideal  of  one  who  has 
heard  a  secret  word  of  promise  and  seen  a 
vision  of  more  than  earthly  glory,  by  virtue 
of  which  he  becomes  the  leader  and  master 
of  his  knights,  able  to  inspire  their  hopes 
and  unite  their  aspirations  and  bind  their 
service  to  himself  in  the  fellowship  of  the 
Bound  Table. 

And  now  turn  to  one  of  the  latest  poemf 
that  Tennyson  has  given  us  :  Loclcsley  Hall, 
Sixty  Years  After.  Sad  enough  is  its  la- 
ment for  broken  dreams,  dark  with  the 
gloom  of  declining  years,  when  the  grass- 
hopper has  become  a  burden  and  desire  has 
failed  and  the  weary  heart  has  grown  afraid 
of  that  which  is  high  ;  but  at  the  close  the 
old  man  rises  again  to  the  sacred  strain :  — 

Follow  you  the  star  that  lights  a  desert  pathway,  yours 

or  mine, 
Forward,   till   you  see    the  highest  Human   Nature  is 

divine. 

Follow  Light  and  do  the  Right  —  for  man  can  half  con- 
trol his  doom  — 
Till  you  see  the  deathless  angel  seated  in  the  vacant  tomb. 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  255 

n. 

When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  Biblical 
scenes  and  characters  to  which  Tennyson 
refers,  we  find  so  many  that  the  difficulty  is 
to  choose.  He  has  recognized  the  fact  that 
an  allusion  wins  half  its  power  from  its  con- 
nection with  the  reader's  memory  and  pre- 
vious thought.  In  order  to  be  forcible  and 
effective  it  must  be  at  least  so  familiar  as  to 
awaken  a  train  of  associations.  An  allusion 
to  something  which  is  entirely  strange  and 
unknown  may  make  an  author  appear  more 
learned,  but  it  does  not  make  him  seem  more 
delightful.  Curiosity  may  be  a  good  atmos- 
phere for  the  man  of  science  to  speak  in,  but 
the  poet  requires  a  sympathetic  medium. 
He  should  endeavour  to  touch  the  first  notes 
of  well-known  airs,  and  then  memory  will 
supply  the  accompaniment  to  enrich  his 
music.  This  is  what  Tennyson  has  done, 
with  the  instinct  of  genius,  in  his  references 
to  the  stories  and  personages  of  the  Bible. 

His  favourite  allusion  is  to  Eden  and  the 
mystical  story  of  Adam  and  Eve.  This 
occurs  again  and  again,  in  The  Day-Dream, 
Maud,  In  Memoriam,  The  Gardener's 
Daughter,    The  Princess,   Milton,  Enid, 


256  TEE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

and  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere.  The  last 
instance  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting,  on 
account  of  a  double  change  which  has  been 
made  in  the  form  of  the  allusion.  In  the 
edition  of  1842  (the  first  in  which  the  poem 
appeared)  the  self-assertive  peasant  who  re- 
fuses to  become  a  lover  says  to  the  lady  of 
high  degree,  — 

Trust  me,  Clara  Vere  de  Vere, 

From  yon  blue  heavens  above  us  bent, 

The  gardener  Adam  and  his  wife 
Smile  at  the  claims  of  long  descent. 

In  later  editions  this  was  altered  to  "  the 
grand  old  gardener  and  his  wife."  But  in 
this  form  the  reference  was  open  to  misun- 
derstanding. I  remember  a  charming  young 
woman,  who  once  told  me  she  had  always 
thought  the  lines  referred  to  some  particu- 
larly pious  old  man  who  had  formerly  taken 
care  of  Lady  Clara's  flower-beds,  and  who 
now  smiled  from  heaven  at  the  foolish  pride 
of  his  mistress.  So  perhaps  it  is  just  as 
well  that  Tennyson  restored  the  line,  in 
1875,  to  its  original  form,  and  gave  us  "  the 
gardener  Adam  "  again,  to  remind  us  of  the 
quaint  distich  — 

When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ? 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  257 

The  story  of  Jephtha's  daughter  is  another 
of  the  Old  Testament  narratives  for  which 
the  poet  seems  to  have  a  predilection.  It  is 
told  with  great  beauty  and  freedom  in  the 
Dream  of  Fair  Women;  Aylmer's  Field 
touches  upon  it;  and  it  recurs  in  The 
Flight. 

In  The  Princess  we  find  the  Queen  of 
Sheba,  Vashti,  Miriam,  Jael,  Lot's  wife, 
Jonah's  gourd,  and  the  Tower  of  Babel. 
And  if  your  copy  of  the  Bible  has  the  Apoc- 
rypha in  it,  you  may  add  the  story  of  Judith 
and  Holof ernes. 

Esther  appears  in  Enid,  and  Rahab  in 
Queen  Mary.  In  Godiva  we  read  of  the 
Earl's  heart,  — 

As  rough  as  Esau's  hand ; 

and  in  Locksley  Hall  we  see  the  picture  of 
the  earth  standing 

At  gaze,  like  Joshua's  moon  in  Ajalon. 

The  Sonnet  to  Buonaparte  recalls  to  our 
memory 

Those  whom  Gideon  school'd  with  briers. 

In  the  Palace  of  Art  we  behold  the  hand- 
writing on  the  wall  at  Belshazzar's  Feast. 

It  would  be  impossible  even  to  enumerate 
Tennyson's  allusions  to  the  life  of   Christ, 


258  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

from  fche  visit  of  the  Magi,  which  appears  in 
Morte  <P  Arthur  and  The  Holy  Grail,  down 
to  the  line  in  Balin  and  Balan  which  tells 
of 

That  same  spear 
Wherewith  the  Roman  pierced  the  aide  of  Christ 

But  to  my  mind  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
the  references  to  the  New  Testament  is  the 
passage  in  In  Memoriam  which  describes  the 
reunion  of  Mary  and  Lazarus  after  his  re- 
turn from  the  grave.  With  what  a  human 
interest  does  the  poet  clothe  the  familiar 
story  !  How  reverently  and  yet  with  what 
natural  and  simple  pathos  does  he  touch 
upon  the  more  intimate  relations  of  the  three 
persons  who  are  the  chief  actors !  The  ques- 
tion which  has  come  a  thousand  times  to 
every  one  that  has  lost  a  dear  friend,  —  the 
question  whether  love  survives  in  the  other 
world,  whether  those  who  have  gone  before 
miss  those  who  are  left  behind  and  have  any 
knowledge  of  their  grief,  —  this  is  the  sug- 
gestion which  brings  the  story  home  to  us 
and  makes  it  seem  real  and  living. 

When  Lazams  left  his  charnel-cave, 
And  home  to  Mary's  house  retnrn'd, 
Was  this  demanded,  —  if  he  yearn'd 

To  hear  her  weeping  by  his  grave  ? 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  .259 

"  Where  wert  thou  brother  those  four  days  ?  " 
There  lives  no  record  of  reply, 
Which  telling  what  it  is  to  die, 
Had  surely  added  praise  to  praise. 

From  every  house  the  neighbours  met, 
The  streets  were  fill'd  with  joyful  sound, 
A  solemn  gladness  even  crown'd 

The  purple  brows  of  Olivet. 

Behold  a  man  raised  up  by  Christ ! 

The  rest  remaineth  unreveal'd ; 

He  told  it  not ;  or  something  seal'd 
The  lips  of  that  Evangelist. 

Then  follows  that  marvellous  description 
of  Mary,  —  a  passage  which  seems  to  me  to 
prove  the  superiority  of  poetry,  as  an  art, 
over  painting  and  sculpture.  For  surely 
neither  marble  nor  canvas  ever  held  such  a 
beautiful  figure  of  devotion  as  that  which 
breathes  in  these  verses  :  — 

Her  eyes  are  homes  of  silent  prayer, 
No  other  thought  her  mind  admits 
But,  he  was  dead,  and  there  he  sits, 

And  He  that  brought  him  back  is  there. 

Then  one  deep  love  doth  supersede 
All  other,  when  her  ardent  gaze 
Roves  from  the  living  brother's  face 

And  rests  upon  the  Life  indeed. 

All  subtle  thought,  all  curious  fears, 
Borne  down  by  gladness  so  complete, 
She  bows,  she  bathes  the  Saviour's  feet 

With  costly  spikenard  and  with  tears. 


260  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Thrice  blest  whose  lives  are  faithful  prayers, 
Whose  loves  in  higher  love  endure ; 
What  souls  possess  themselves  so  pure, 

Or  is  there  blessedness  like  theirs  ? 

It  does  not  seem  possible  that  the  chang- 
ing fashions  of  poetic  art  should  ever  make 
verses  like  these  seem  less  exquisite,  or  that 
Time  should  ever  outwear  the  sweet  and 
simple  power  of  this  conception  of  religion. 

There  is  no  passage  in  the  range  of  litera- 
ture which  expresses  more  grandly  the  mys- 
tery of  death,  or  shows  more  attractively  the 
happiness  of  an  unquestioning  personal  faith 
in  Him  who,  alone  of  men,  has  solved  it  and 
knows  the  answer.  I  cannot  bear  to  add 
anything  to  it  by  way  of  comment,  except 
perhaps  these  words  of  Emerson  :  "  Of  im- 
mortality, the  soul,  when  well  employed,  is 
incurious.  It  is  so  well  that  it  is  sure  it 
will  be  well.  It  asks  no  questions  of  the 
Supreme  Being." 

The  poem  of  Hizpah,  which  was  first  pub- 
lished in  the  volume  of  Ballads  in  1880,  is 
an  illustration  of  dramatic  paraphrase  from 
the  Bible.  The  story  of  the  Hebrew  mother 
watching  beside  the  dead  bodies  of  her  sons 
whom  the  Gibeonites  had  hanged  upon  the 
hill,  and  defending  them  night  and  day  for 


TBE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  261 

six  months  from  the  wild  beasts  and  birds  of 
prey,  is  transformed  into  the  story  of  an 
English  mother,  whose  son  has  been  executed 
for  robbery  and  hung  in  chains  upon  the  gib- 
bet. She  is  driven  wild  by  her  grief  ;  hears 
her  boy's  voice  wailing  through  the  wind,  "  O 
mother,  come  out  to  me ;  "  creeps  through  the 
rain  and  the  darkness  to  the  place  where  the 
chains  are  creaking  and  groaning  with  their 
burden  ;  gropes  and  gathers  all  that  is  left 
of  what  was  once  her  child  and  carries  him 
home  to  bury  him  beside  the  churchyard 
wall.  And  then,  when  she  is  accused  of 
theft,  she  breaks  out  in  a  passion  of  defence. 
It  is  a  mother's  love  justifying  itself  against 
a  cruel  law.  Those  poor  fragments  which 
the  wind  and  the  rain  had  spared  were  hers, 
by  a  right  divine,  —  bone  of  her  bone,  — 
she  had  nursed  and  cradled  her  baby,  and  all 
that  was  left  belonged  to  her ;  justice  had 
no  claim  which  could  stand  against  hers. 

Theirs  ?  O  no !    they  are  mine,  —  not  theirs,  —  they  had 
moved  in  my  side  ! 

A  famous  writer  has  said  of  this  passage, 
"  Nothing  more  piteous,  more  passionate, 
more  adorable  for  intensity  of  beauty  was 
ever  before  this  wrought  by  human  cunning 
into  the  likeness  of  such  words  as  words  are 
powerless  to  praise." 


£62-  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNTBON. 


m. 
In  trying  to  estimate  the  general  influ- 
ence of  the  Bible  upon  the  thought  and  feel- 
ing of  Tennyson  we  have  a  more  delicate 
and   difficult   task.     For   the   teachings   of 
Christianity  have  become  a  part  of  the  moral 
atmosphere  of  the  age ;  and  it  is  hard  for 
us  to  tell  just  what  any  man  would  have  been 
without   them,   or  just  how  far  they  have 
made  him  what  he  is,  while  we  are  looking 
at  him  through  the  very  same  medium  in 
which  we  ourselves  are   breathing.     If  we 
could  get  out  of  ourselves,  if  we  could  divest 
ourselves  of  all    those  views   of    God  and 
duty  and  human  life  which  we  have  learned 
so  early  that  they  seem  to  us  natural  and  in- 
evitable, we  might  perhaps  be  able  to  arrive 
at  a  more  exact  discrimination.     But  this 
would  be  to  sacrifice  a  position  of  vital  sym- 
pathy for  one  of  critical    judgment.     The 
loss  would  be  greater  than  the  gain.     It  is 
just  as  well  for  the  critic  to  recognize  that 
he  is  hardly  able 

To  sit  as  God,  holding  no  form  of  creed, 
But  contemplating  all. 

Tennyson  himself  has  described  the  mental 
paralysis,  the  spiritual  distress,  which  follow 


TEE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  263 

that  attempt.  A  critic  ought  to  be  free  from 
prejudices,  but  surely  not  even  for  the  sake 
of  liberty  should  he  make  himself  naked  of 
convictions.  To  float  on  wings  above  the 
earth  will  give  one  a  bird's-eye  view ;  but 
for  a  man's-eye  view  we  must  have  a  stand- 
ing-place on  the  earth.  And  after  all  the 
latter  may  be  quite  as  true,  even  though  it 
is  not  absolutely  colourless. 

The  effect  of  Christianity  upon  the  poetry 
of  Tennyson  may  be  felt,  first  of  all,  in  its 
general  moral  quality.  By  this  it  is  not 
meant  that  he  is  always  or  often  preaching, 
or  drawing  pictures 

"  To  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale." 

Didactic  art  sometimes  misses  its  own  end 
by  being  too  instructive.  We  find  in  Ten- 
nyson's poems  many  narratives  of  action  and 
descriptions  of  character  which  are  simply 
left  to  speak  for  themselves  and  teach  their 
own  lessons.  In  this  they  are  like  the  his- 
tories in  the  Book  of  Judges  or  the  Boohs 
of  the  Kings.  The  writer  takes  it  for  granted 
that  the  reader  has  a  heart  and  a  conscience. 
Compare  in  this  respect,  the  perfect  sim- 
plicity of  the  domestic  idyll  of  Dora  with 
the  Booh  of  Ruth. 

But  at  the  same  time  the  poet  can  hardly 


264  TBE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

help  revealing,  more  by  tone  and  accent  than 
by  definite  words,  his  moral  sympathies. 
Tennyson  always  speaks  from  the  side  of 
virtue  ;  and  not  of  that  new  and  strange  vir- 
tue which  some  of  our  later  poets  have  ex- 
alted, and  which  when  it  is  stripped  of  its 
fine  garments  turns  out  to  be  nothing  else 
than  the  unrestrained  indulgence  of  every 
natural  impulse;  but  rather  of  that  old- 
fashioned  virtue  whose  laws  are  "Self-rever- 
ence, self-knowledge,  self-control,"  and  which 
finds  its  highest  embodiment  in  the  morality 
of  the  New  Testament.  Read,  for  example, 
his  poems  which  deal  directly  with  the  sub- 
ject of  marriage :  The  Miller's  Daughter, 
Isabel,  Lady  Clare,  The  Lord  of  Burleigh, 
Locksley  Hall,  Love  and  Duty,  The  Wreck, 
Aylmer's  Field,  Enoch  Arden,  the  latter 
part  of  The  Princess,  and  many  different 
passages  of  the  Idylls.  From  whatever  side 
he  approaches  the  subject,  whether  he  is 
painting  with  delicate,  felicitous  touches  the 
happiness  of  truly-wedded  hearts,  or  de- 
nouncing the  sins  of  avarice  and  pride  which 
corrupt  the  modern  marriage-mart  of  society, 
or  tracing  the  secret  evil  which  poisoned  the 
court  of  Arthur  and  shamed  the  golden  head 
of  Guinevere,  his  ideal  is  always  the  perfect 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  265 

and  deathless  union  of  two  lives  in  one, 
"  which  is  commended  of  St.  Paul  to  be  hon- 
ourable among  all  men."  To  him  woman 
seems  loveliest  when  she  has 

The  laws  of  marriage  character' d  in  gold 
Upon  the  blanched  tablets  of  her  heart, 

and  man  strongest  when  he  has  learned 

To  love  one  maiden  only,  cleave  to  her, 
And  worship  her  by  years  of  noble  deeds. 

The  theology  of  Tennyson  has  been  ac- 
cused of  a  pantheistic  tendency  ;  and  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  there  are  expressions  in 
his  poems  which  seem  to  look  in  that  direc- 
tion, or  at  least  to  look  decidedly  away  from 
the  conception  of  the  universe  as  a  vast 
machine  and  its  Maker  as  a  supernatural 
machinist  who  has  constructed  the  big  watch 
and  left  it  to  run  on  by  itself  until  it  wears 
out.  But  surely  this  latter  view,  which 
fairly  puts  God  out  of  the  world,  is  not  the 
view  of  the  Bible.  The  New  Testament 
teaches  us,  undoubtedly,  to  distinguish  be- 
tween Him  and  His  works;  but  it  also 
teaches  that  He  is  in  His  works,  or  rather 
that  all  His  works  are  in  Him,  —  in  Jlim, 
says  St.  Faul,  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being.  Light  is  His  garment.  Life  is  His 
breath. 


266  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYBON. 

God  is  law  say  the  wise ;  0  Soul,  and  let  us  rejoice, 
For  if  He  thunder  by  law,  the  thunder  is  yet  His  voice. 

But  if  I  wished  to  prove,  against  those 
who  doubted,  Tennyson's  belief  in  a  living, 
personal,  spiritual  God,  immanent  in  the 
universe,  yet  not  confused  with  it,  I  should 
turn  to  his  doctrine  of  prayer.  There  are 
many  places  in  his  poems  where  prayer  is, 
not  explained,  but  simply  justified,  as  the 
highest  activity  of  a  human  soul  and  a  real 
bond  between  God  and  man.  In  these  very 
lines  on  The  Higher  Pantheism,  from  which 
I  have  just  quoted,  there  is  a  verse  which 
can  only  be  interpreted  as  the  description  of 
a  personal  intercourse  between  the  divine 
and  the  human  :  — 

Speak  to  Him.  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit 

can  meet,  — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 

feet. 

Of  Enoch  Arden  in  the  dreadful  loneliness 
of  that  rich  island  where  he  was  cast  away 
it  is  said  that 

Had  not  his  poor  heart 
Spoken  with  That,  which  being  everywhere 
Lets  none,  who  speaks  with  Him,  seem  all  alone, 
Surely  the  man  had  died  of  solitude. 

When  he  conies  back,  after  the  weary  years 
of  absence,  to  find  his  wife  wedded  to  an- 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  QQl 

other,  and  his  home  no  longer  his,  it  is  by 
prayer  that  he  obtains  strength  to  keep  his 
generous  resolve 

Not  to  tell  her,  never  to  let  her  know, 

and  to  bear  the  burden  of  his  secret  to  the 
lonely  end.  Edith,  in  the  drama  of  Harold, 
when  her  last  hope  breaks  and  the  shadow 
of  gloom  begins  to  darken  over  her,  cries,  — 

No  help  but  prayer, 
A  breath  that  fleets  beyond  this  iron  world 
And  touches  Him  that  made  it. 

King  Arthur,  bidding  farewell  to  the  last  of 
his  faithful  knights,  says  to  him,  — 

Pray  for  my  soul.     More  things  are  wrought  by  prayex 

Than  this  world  dreams  of.     Wherefore  let  thy  voice 

Rise  like  a  fountain  for  me  night  and  day. 

For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 

That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 

If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer 

Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friend  ? 

For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 

Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God. 

But  lest  any  one  should  say  that  these  pas- 
sages are  merely  dramatic,  and  do  not  ex- 
press the  personal  faith  of  the  poet,  turn  to 
the  solemn  invocation  in  which  he  has  struck 
the  keynote  of  his  deepest  and  most  personal 
poem,  — 

Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love  t 


268  THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

It  is  the  poet's  own  prayer.  No  man  could 
have  written  it  save  one  who  believed  that 
God  is  Love,  and  that  Love  is  incarnate  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Next  to  the  question  of  the  reality  of 
God,  comes  the  problem  of  human  life  and 
destiny.  And  this  has  a  twofold  aspect. 
First,  in  regard  to  the  present  world,  is 
man  moving  upward  or  downward ;  is  good 
stronger  than  evil  or  evil  stronger  than  good  • 
is  life  worth  living,  or  is  it  a  cheat  and  a 
failure  ?  Second,  in  regard  to  the  future, 
is  there  any  hope  of  personal  continuance 
beyond  death  ?  To  both  of  these  inquiries 
Tennyson  gives  an  answer  which  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  teachings  of  the  Bible. 

He  finds  the  same  difficulties  and  doubts 
in  the  continual  conflict  between  good  and 
evil  which  are  expressed  in  Job  and  Eccle- 
siastes.  Indeed  so  high  an  authority  as 
Professor  Plumptre  has  said  that  "  the 
most  suggestive  of  all  commentaries  "  on  the 
latter  book  are  Tennyson's  poems,  The  Vis- 
ion of  Sin,  The  Palace  of  Art,  and  Two 
Voices.  In  the  last  of  these  he  draws  out 
in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  the  strife  between 
hope  and  despair  in  the  breast  of  a  man  who 
has  grown  weary  of  life  and  yet  is  not  ready 


THE  BIBLE  IN    TENNYSON.  269 

to  embrace  death.  For,  after  all,  the  sum 
of  the  reasons  which  the  first  voice  urges  in 
favour  of  suicide  is  that  nothing  is  worth 
very  much,  no  man  is  of  any  real  value  to 
the  world,  il  rHy  pas  d'homme  necessaire,  no 
effort  produces  any  lasting  result,  all  things 
are  moving  round  and  round  in  a  tedious 
circle,  —  vanity  of  vanities,  —  if  you  are 
tired  why  not  depart  from  the  play  ?  The 
tempted  man  —  tempted  to  yield  to  the 
devil's  own  philosophy  of  pessimism  —  uses 
all  argument  to  combat  the  enemy,  but  in 
vain,  or  at  least  with  only  half-success ;  until 
at  last  the  night  is  worn  away;  he  flings 
open  his  window  and  looks  out  upon  the 
Sabbath  morn. 

The  sweet  church  bells  began  to  peaL 

On  to  God's  house  the  people  prest ; 
Passing  the  place  where  each  must  rest, 
Each  entered  like  a  welcome  guest. 

One  walked  between  his  wife  and  child, 
With  measured  footfall  firm  and  mild, 
And  now  and  then  he  gravely  smiled. 

The  prudent  partner  of  his  blood 
Leaned  on  him,  faithful,  gentle,  good, 
Wearing  the  rose  of  womanhood. 

And  in  their  double  love  secure, 
The  little  maiden  walked  demure, 
Pacing  with  downward  eyelids  pure. 


270         THE  POETRY  OF  TEN  NT  BON. 

These  three  made  unity  bo  sweet, 
My  frozen  heart  began  to  beat, 
Remembering  its  ancient  heat. 

I  blest  them,  and  they  wandered  on: 
I  spoke,  but  answer  came  there  none ; 
The  dull  and  bitter  voiee  was  gone. 

And  then  comes  another  voice  whispering  of 
a  secret  hope,  and  bidding  the  soul  "Re- 
joice !  Rejoice !  "  If  we  hear  in  the  first 
part  of  the  poem  the  echo  of  the  saddest 
book  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  hear  also  in 
the  last  part  the  tones  of  Him  who  said: 
Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  in  my 
Father  s  house  are  many  mansions  ;  if  it 
were  not  so  I  would  have  told  you. 

There  are  many  places  in  the  poems  of 
Tennyson  where  he  speaks  with  bitterness  of 
the  falsehood  and  evil  that  are  in  the  world, 
the  corruptions  of  society,  the  downward 
tendencies  in  human  nature.  He  is  in  no 
sense  a  rose-water  optimist.  But  he  is  in 
the  truest  sense  a  meliorist.  He  doubts  not 
that 

Thro'  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of 
the  suns. 

He  believes  that  good 

Shall  be  the  final  goal  of  ill. 

He  rests  his  faith  upon  the  uplifting  power 
of  Christianity;  — 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  271 

For  I  count  the  gray  barbarian  lower  than  the  Christian 
child. 

He  hears  the  bells  at  midnight  tolling  the 
death  of  the  old  year,  and  he  calls  them  to 

Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 
The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand ; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 

Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be ! 

In  regard  to  the  life  beyond  the  grave, 
he  asserts  with  new  force  and  beauty  the 
old  faith  in  a  personal  immortality.  The 
dim  conception  of  an  unconscious  survival 
through  the  influence  of  our  thoughts  and 
deeds,  which  George  Eliot  has  expressed  in 
her  poem  of  "the  choir  invisible,"  Tenny- 
son finds  to  be 

A  faith  as  vague  as  all  unsweet- 
Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside ; 

And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  a  personal  recog- 
nition of  friends  in  the  other  world  has 
never  been  more  distinctly  uttered  than  in 
these  words.  It  is  not,  indeed,  supported 
by  any  metaphysical  arguments ;  nor  are  we 
concerned  thus  to  justify  it.  Our  only 
purpose  now  is  to  show  —  and  after  these 
verses   who  can  doubt   it  —  that  the  poet 


272         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

has  kept  the  faith  which  he  learned  in  his 
father's  house  and  at  his  mother's  knee. 

On  many  other  points  I  fain  would  touch, 
but  must  forbear.  There  is  one  more,  how- 
ever, on  which  the  orthodoxy  of  the  poet 
has  been  questioned,  and  by  some  critics 
positively  denied.  It  is  said  that  he  has 
accepted  the  teachings  of  Universalism.  A 
phrase  from  In  Memoriam^ 

The  larger  hope,  — 

has  been  made  a  watchword  by  those  who 
defend  the  doctrine  of  a  second  probation, 
and  a  sign  to  be  spoken  against  by  those 
who  reject  it.  Into  this  controversy  I  have 
no  desire  to  enter.  Nor  is  it  necessary ;  for, 
whatever  the  poet's  expectation  may  be, 
there  is  not  a  line  in  all  his  works  that  con- 
tradicts or  questions  the  teachings  of  Christ, 
nor  even  a  line  that  runs  beyond  the  limit 
of  human  thought  into  the  mysteries  of  the 
unknown  and  the  unknowable.  The  wages 
of  sin  is  death ;  the  wages  of  virtue  is  to  go 
on  and  not  to  die.  This  is  the  truth  which 
he  teaches  on  higher  authority  than  his  own. 
"  The  rest,"  as  Hamlet  says,  "  is  silence." 
But  what  is  the  end  of  all  these  conflicts, 
these  struggles,  these  probations?  What 
the  final  result  of  this  strife  between  sin  and 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  273 

virtue  ?  What  the  consummation  of  oppug- 
nancies  and  interworkings  ?  The  poet  looks 
onward  through  the  mists  and  shadows  and 
sees  only  God  ;  — 

That  God,  which  ever  lives  and  loves, 

One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

And  if  any  one  shall  ask  what  this  far-off 
divine  event  is,  we  may  answer  in  the  words 
of  St.  Paul  :— 

For  he  must  reign  until  he  hath  put  all 
enemies  under  his  feet.  The  last  enemy 
that  shall  be  abolished  is  death.  For,  he 
put  all  things  in  subjection  under  his  feet. 
But  when  he  saith,  all  things  are  put  in 
subjection,  it  is  evident  that  he  is  excepted 
who  did  subject  all  things  unto  him.  And 
when  all  things  have  been  subjected  unto 
him,  then  shall  the  Son  also  himself  be 
subjected  to  him  that  did  subject  all  things 
unto  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all. 

And  now,  as  we  bring  to  a  close  this  brief 
study  of  a  subject  which  I  trust  has  proved 
larger  than  it  promised  at  first  to  those  who 
had  never  looked  into  it,  what  are  our  con- 
clusions ?     Or  if  this  word  seem  too  exact 


274         THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

and  formal,  what  are  our  impressions  in  re- 
gard to  the  relations  between  Tennyson  and 
the  Bible  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  cannot  help  seeing 
that  the  poet  owes  a  large  debt  to  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures,  not  only  for  their  formative 
influence  upon  his  mind  and  for  the  purely 
literary  material  in  the  way  of  illustrations 
and  allusions  which  they  have  given  him, 
but  also,  and  more  particularly,  for  the  crea- 
tion of  a  moral  atmosphere,  a  medium  of 
thought  and  feeling,  in  which  he  can  speak 
freely  and  with  assurance  of  sympathy  to  a 
very  wide  circle  of  readers.  He  does  not 
need  to  be  always  explaining  and  defining. 
There  is  much  that  is  taken  for  granted, 
much  that  goes  without  saying.  What  a 
world^  of  unspoken  convictions  lies  behind 
such  poems  as  Dora  and  Enoch  Arden. 
Their  beauty  is  not  in  themselves  alone,  but 
in  the  air  that  breathes  around  them,  in  the 
light  that  falls  upon  them  from  the  faith 
of  the  centuries.  Christianity  is  something 
more  than  a  system  of  doctrines ;  it  is  a  life, 
a  tone,  a  spirit,  a  great  current  of  memories, 
beliefs  and  hopes  flowing  through  millions 
of  hearts.  And  he  who  launches  his  words 
upon  this  current  finds  that  they  are  carried 


THE  BIBLE  IN  TENNYSON.  275 

with  a  strength  beyond  his  own,  and 
freighted  often  with  a  meaning  which  he 
himself  has  not  fully  understood  as  it  flashed 
through  him. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  help 
seeing  that  the  Bible  gains  a  wider  influence 
and  a  new  power  over  men  as  it  flows 
through  the  poet's  mind  upon  the  world.  Its 
narratives  and  its  teachings  clothe  them- 
selves in  modern  forms  of  speech,  and  find 
entrance  into  many  places  which  otherwise 
were  closed  against  them.  I  do  not  mean 
by  this  that  poetry  is  better  than  the  Bible, 
but  only  that  poetry  lends  wings  to  Chris- 
tian truth.  People  who  would  not  read  a 
sermon  will  read  a  poem.  And  though  its 
moral  and  religious  teachings  may  be  indi- 
rect, though  they  may  proceed  by  silent 
assumption  rather  than  by  formal  assertion, 
they  exercise  an  influence  which  is  perhaps 
the  more  powerful  because  it  is  unconscious. 
The  Bible  is  in  continual  danger  of  being 
desiccated  by  an  exhaustive  (and  exhaust- 
ing) scientific  treatment.  When  it  comes 
to  be  regarded  chiefly  as  a  compendium  of 
exact  statements  of  metaphysical  doctrine, 
the  day  of  its  life  will  be  over,  and  it  will 
be  ready  for  a  place  in  the  museum  of  anti- 


276  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

quities.  It  must  be  a  power  in  literature  if 
it  is  to  be  a  force  in  society.  For  literature, 
as  a  wise  critic  has  denned  it,  is  just  "  the 
best  that  has  been  thought  and  said  in  the 
world."  And  if  this  be  true,  literature  is 
certain,  not  only  to  direct  culture  but  also  to 
mould  conduct. 

Is  it  possible,  then,  for  wise  and  earnest 
men  to  look  with  indifference  upon  the  course 
of  what  is  often  called,  with  a  slighting 
accent,  "  mere  belles  lettres  "  ?  We  might 
as  well  be  careless  about  the  air  we  breathe 
or  the  water  we  drink.  Malaria  is  no  less 
fatal  than  pestilence.  The  chief  peril  which 
threatens  the  permanence  of  Christian  faith 
and  morals  is  none  other  than  the  malaria  of 
modern  letters,  —  an  atmosphere  of  dull, 
heavy,  faithless  materialism.  Into  this  nar- 
cotic air  the  poetry  of  Tennyson  blows  like 
a  pure  wind  from  a  loftier  and  serener 
height,  bringing  life  and  joy.  His  face 
looks  out  upon  these  darkening  days,  — 
grave,  strong,  purified  by  conflict,  lighted 
by  the  inward  glow  of  faith.  He  is  become 
as  one  of  the  prophets,  — a  witness  for  God 
and  for  immortality. 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE. 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE. 

In  the  secluded  garden  of  Christ's  Col- 
lege, at  Cambridge,  there  is  a  mulberr}'- 
tree  of  which  tradition  says  that  it  was 
planted  by  John  Milton  in  his  student  days. 
I  remember  sitting  on  the  green  turf  below 
it,  a  few  years  ago,  and  looking  up  at  the 
branches,  heavy  with  age  and  propped  on 
crutches,  and  wondering  to  see  that  the  old 
tree  still  brought  forth  fruit.  It  was  not 
the  size  nor  the  quality  of  the  fruit  that 
impressed  me.  I  hardly  thought  of  that. 
The  strange  thing,  the  beautiful  thing,  was 
that,  after  so  many  years,  the  tree  was  yet 
bearing. 

It  is  this  feeling  that  comes  to  us  when 
we  see  the  productive  power  of  a  poet  con- 
tinued beyond  the  common  term  of  human 
life.  The  thing  is  so  rare  that  it  appears 
almost  miraculous.  '*  Whom  the  gods  love 
die  young  "  seems  to  be  the  law  for  poets ; 
or,  at  least,  if  they  chance  to  live  long,  the 
gods,  and  chiefly  Apollo,  cease  to  love  them. 
How  few  are  the  instances  in  which  poetic 


280  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

fertility  has  lasted  beyond  the  threescore 
years  !  Wordsworth,  Landor,  Victor  Hugo, 
Robert  Browning,  —  among  our  American 
singers,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  and 
Lowell,  —  truly  they  are  not  many  to  whom 
has  been  given  the  double  portion  of  long 
life  and  unfailing  song.  English  literature 
has  no  parallel,  in  this  respect,  to  the 
career  of  Tennyson.  For  sixty-six  years 
he  was  drawing  refreshment  from  the  wells 
of  poetry,  and  still  the  silver  cord  was  not 
loosed,  nor  the  golden  bowl  broken. 

I  want  to  say  a  word  or  two  in  this  essay 
about  the  work  of  his  later  life.  It  has  a 
value  of  its  own,  apart  from  the  wonder  of 
its  production  at  such  an  advanced  age.  I 
am  quite  sure  that  there  is  a  great  deal 
which  belongs  to  the  real  and  enduring 
poetry  of  Tennyson  in  the  two  volumes 
which  he  gave  to  the  world  in  1886  and 
1889,  and  in  the  posthumous  volume 
which  appeared  in  the  month  of  his  death, 
October,  1892. 

I. 

LocTcdey  Hall  Sixty  Years  After  was  not 
received  at  first  with  notable  applause. 
The  young  critics  reviled  it  as  the  work  of 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE.  281 

an  old  man,  and  raised  a  chorus  of  "  Go 
up,  thou  baldhead,"  which  made  one  regret 
that  since  the  days  of  Elisha  the  bears  have 
neglected  one  of  their  most  beneficent 
functions. 

The  first  Locksley  Hall  was  beyond  a 
doubt  the  strongest  and  most  immediately 
successful  thing  in  the  volumes  of  1842, 
which  gave  Tennyson  his  place  as  a  popular 
poet.  The  billowy  rush  of  the  verse,  the 
romantic  interest  of  the  story,  the  vigor- 
ous spirit  of  hope  and  enthusiasm  which 
throbbed  through  the  poem  and  made  it 
seem  alive  with  the  breath  of  a  new  age, 
at  once  captivated  all  readers.  It  was  this 
poem,  more  than  any  other,  which  lifted 
Tennyson  beyond  the  admiration  of  a  nar- 
row circle  and  opened  to  him  the  heart  of 
the  world.  And  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that, 
even  in  its  outward  form,  this  poem  is  one 
of  the  few  which  his  habit  of  self-correction 
has  left  almost  unchanged.  There  are  but 
four  slight  verbal  variations  between  the 
first  and  the  last  editions. 

Forty-four  years  had  passed  when  the 
poet  took  up  the  thread  of  his  youthful 
dream  once  more  and  followed  it  to  the 
end. 


282         TJSE  POETRY  OF   TENttYSON. 

The  dramatic  nature  of  the  poem  must 
not  be  forgotten,  for  it  is  this  which  gives 
unity  to  the  two  parts.  They  are  not  dis- 
connected strings  of  brilliant  metaphors 
and  comparisons,  or  trochaic  remarks  upon 
human  life  and  progress.  They  are  the 
expression  of  a  character,  the  lyric  history 
of  a  life  ;  they  form  a  complete  and  rounded 
whole.  They  are  two  acts  in  the  same 
play.  The  hero,  the  scene,  remain  the 
same.  Only  the  time  is  changed  by  half 
a  century. 

It  seems  quite  evident  that  Tennyson 
was  not  willing  to  leave  his  hero  as  he 
stood  in  the  first  act.  For  with  all  his 
attractive,  not  to  say  "  magnetic,"  quali- 
ties, there  was  something  about  him  that 
was  unlovely  and  repellent,  almost  absurd. 
He  made  too  much  of  himself,  talked  too 
loudly  and  recklessly,  was  too  much  in- 
clined to  rave  and  exaggerate.  Tennyson 
doubtless  wished  to  do  for  him  what  time 
really  does  for  every  man  whose  heart 
is  of  true  metal  —  make  him  wiser  and 
kinder  and  more  worthy  to  be  loved. 
The  touches  by  which  this  change  has 
been  accomplished  are  most  delicate  and 
admirable. 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE.  283 

Compare  the  rejected  lover's  jealousy  of 
the  baby  rival  whose  lips  should  laugh  him 
down,  and  whose  hands  should  push  him 
from  the  mother's  heart,  with  the  old 
man's  prayer  beside  the  marble  image  of 
Amy, 

Looking  still  as  if  she  smiled, 

sleeping  quietly  with  her  little  child  upon 
her  breast.  Or  turn  from  the  young 
man's  scornful  and  unjust  description  of 
the  richer  suitor  who  had  carried  off  his 
sweetheart,  to  the  generous  tribute  which 
he  lays  at  last  upon  the  grave  of  him  who 

Strove  for  sixty  widow'd  years  to  help  his  homelier 
brother  man. 

Or  put  his  first  wild  complaint  of  the 
worthlessness  and  desolation  of  his  life 
beside  his  later  acknowledgment  of  the 
joy  and  strength  which  had  come  to  him 
through  the  larger,  deeper  love  of  Edith. 
Surely,  if  words  have  any  meaning,  the 
poet  means  to  teach  us  by  these  things 
that  not  only  youthful  jealousy,  but  also 
youthful  despair,  is  false,  and  that,  for 
every  one  who  will  receive  its  moral  dis- 
cipline and  hold  fast  to  its  eternal  hopes, 
life  is  worth  the  living. 


284        THE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

So  far,  then,  as  the  story  of  the  two 
poems  is  concerned,  so  far  as  they  present 
to  us  a  picture  of  human  character  and 
trace  its  development  through  the  experi- 
ence of  joy  and  sorrow,  their  lesson  is 
sweet  and  sound  and  full  of  encourage- 
ment. It  shows  the  frailty  of  exaggerated 
feelings  of  passion,  born  in  an  atmosphere 
of  tropical  heat,  and  unable  to  endure  the 
cooler  air  of  reality.  But  it  shows  also 
that  the  garden  of  life  has  better  and  more 
lasting  blossoms,  affections  which  survive 
all  shock  and  change,  a  man's  love  which 
is  stronger  than  a  boy's  fancy,  a  man's 
reverence  for  honest  worth  which  can 
overcome  a  boy's  resentment  for  imagined 

wrongs, 

A  sober  certainty  of  waking  bliss 

which  makes  divine  amends  for  the  van- 
ished dreams  of  boyhood.  It  reminds  us 
of  the  story  of  the  "  child-wife,"  Dora,  and 
the  woman-wife,  Agnes,  which  Dickens 
has  told  in  David  Copperfield,  or  of 
Thackeray's  history  of  Henri/  Esmond. 

But  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
sequel  of  the  poem  in  its  other  aspect,  as 
a  commentary  on  modern  England,  as  an 
estimate  of  the   result  of   those  buoyant, 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD   TREE.  285 

bounding  hopes  which  seemed  to  swing 
the  earlier  verses  onward  in  the  full  tide 
of  exultation  toward  a  near  millennium, 
we  shall  find  room  for  a  difference  of 
opinion  among  critics.  There  were  some 
who  regarded  the  second  Lockrtey  Hall  as 
a  veritable  palinode,  a  complete  recanta- 
tion of  the  poet's  youthful  creed,  a  shame- 
ful desertion  from  the  army  of  progress  to 
the  army  of  reaction,  a  betrayal  of  the 
standard  of  hope  into  the  hands  of  despair. 
There  were  others,  among  them  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, who  thought  that,  though  the  poet 
had  not  really  deserted  the  good  cause,  he 
had  at  least  yielded  too  far  to  despond- 
ency, and  that  he  was  in  danger  of  mar- 
ring the  semi-centennial  jubilee  of  Queen 
Victoria's  reign  with  unnecessarily  "tragic 
tones."  It  seems  to  me  that  both  of  these 
views  were  unjust,  because  they  both  failed 
to  go  far  enough  beneath  the  surface. 
They  left  out  of  sight  several  things  which 
were  necessary  to  a  fair  judgment  of  the 
poem. 

First  of  all  is  the  fact  that  the  poet  does 
not  speak  for  himself,  but  through  the  lips 
of  a  persona^  a  mask ;  and  what  he  says 
must  be  iu  character.     Mr.  Gladstone  has, 


286  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

indeed,  noted  this  fact;  but  he  has  failed 
to  take  fully  into  account  the  peculiar  and 
distinctive  qualities  of  the  character  which 
the  poet  has  chosen.  The  hero  of  Lockdey 
Hall  is  a  man  in  whom  emotion  is  stronger 
than  thought ;  impulsive,  high-strung,  su- 
persensitive ;  one  to  whom  everything  that 
he  sees  must  loom  larger  than  life  through 
the  mist  of  his  own  overwrought  feelings. 
This  is  his  nature.  And  if  in  youth  he 
took  too  bright  a  view  of  the  future,  it  is 
quite  as  inevitable  that  in  age  he  should 
take  too  dark  a  view  of  the  present.  If 
there  be  any  exaggeration  in  his  com- 
plaints about  the  evils  of  our  times,  it  is 
but  fair  to  set  them  down  to  the  idiosyn- 
crasy of  the  hero,  and  not  to  the  opinions 
of  the  poet. 

But  suppose  we  put  this  plea  of  dramatic 
propriety  aside,  and  make  Tennyson  an- 
swerable for  all  that  his  hero  says.  We 
shall  find  that  there  were  some  things  in 
the  first  rhapsody  quite  as  hard  and  bitter 
as  any  in  the  second.  Take  the  vigourous 
imprecations  against  the  social  wants,  the 
social  lies,  the  sickly  forms,  by  which  the 
young  man  is  oppressed  and  infuriated. 
Hear  him  cry  :  — 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD    TREE.  287 

What  is  that  which  I  should  turn  to,  lighting  upon  days 

like  these  1 
Every  door  is  barred  with  gold,  and  opens  but  to  golden 

keys. 

See  his  picture  of  the  hungry  people,  creep- 
ing like  a  lion  toward  the  slothful  watcher 
beside  a  dying  fire.  Here,  at  least,  even 
in  the  first  outflow  of  hopeful  music,  are 
the  warning  notes.  And  though  there  may 
be  more  severity  in  the  old  man's  condem- 
nation of  the  iniquities  and  follies  of  so- 
ciety, in  one  point  at  least  he  has  grown 
milder:  he  does  not  indulge  in  any  more 
"  cursing." 

Observe  also,  if  we  must  hold  Tennyson 
responsible  for  a  retraction  in  the  second 
poem  of  anything  that  he  taught  in  the  first, 
just  what  is  the  point  to  which  that  retrac- 
tion applies.  He  does  not  deny  his  early 
hope  for  the  future  of  England  and  the 
world ;  he  denies  only  the  two  insufficient 
grounds  on  which  that  hope  was  based. 

One  of  these  grounds  was  the  swift  and 
wonderful  march  of  what  is  called  modern 
improvement,  meaning  thereby  the  steam- 
ship, the  railway,  the  telegraph,  and  the 
advance  of  all  the  industrial  arts.  Of  these 
he  says  now  :  — 


f 


288  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Half  the  marvels  of  my  morning,  triumphs  over  time 

and  space, 
Staled  by  frequence,  shrunk  by  usaga  into  commonest 

commonplace. 

And  is  not  this  true?  Have  we  not  all 
felt  the  shrinkage  of  the  much-vaunted 
miracles  of  science  into  the  veriest  kitchen 
utensils  of  a  comfort-worshipping  society  ? 
Physical  powers  have  been  multiplied  by 
an  unknown  quantity,  but  it  is  a  serious 
question  whether  moral  powers  have  not 
had  their  square  root  extracted.  A  man 
can  go  from  New  York  to  London  now  in 
six  days.  But  when  he  arrives  he  is  no 
better  man  than  if  it  had  taken  him  a 
month.  He  can  talk  across  three  thousand 
miles  of  ocean,  but  he  has  nothing  more  to 
say  than  when  he  sent  his  letter  by  a 
sailing-packet.  All  the  inventions  in  the 
world  will  not  change  man's  heart,  or 
Lift  him  nearer  God-like  state. 

The  other  ground  of  hope  in  the  old 
Lockzley  Hall  was  the  advance  of  modern 
politics,  through  the  freedom  of  speech  and 
the  extension  of  suffrage,  which  seemed  to 
promise  at  no  distant  date  a  sort  of  uni- 
versal "  Parliament  of  Man,"  a  "  Federation 
of  the  World."     In  the  new  Locksley  Hall 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD    TREE.         289 


s^- 


the  poet  confesses  that  this  ground  also  has  ^."^  J* 

failed  him.  He  no  longer  thinks  so  highly  ^  V*  %fofi 
of  Parliament  that  he  desires  to  see  it  re- 
produced on  a  larger  scale.  The  virtues  of 
talk  as  a  panacea  for  human  ills  appear  to 
him  more  than  dubious.  He  hazards  the 
conjecture  that 

Old  England  may  go  down  in  babble  at  last. 

And  he  breaks  out  in  fierce  indignation 
against  the  "  rivals  of  realm-ruining  party," 
who  care  more  for  votes  than  for  truth, 
and  for  the  preservation  of  their  own 
power  than  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Empire. 

What  is  all  this  but  the  acknowledgment 
of  the  truth  which  most  sober  men  are 
beginning  to  feel?  Fifty  years  ago  mate- 
rial science  and  political  theory  promised 
large  things.     The  promise  has  been  kept 

to  the  ear  and  broken  to  the  hope.     The 

world  has  gone  forward  —  a  little  —  but  it 

has  not  arrived  at  a  complete  millennium, 

nor  even  swept  at  once  into  a  brighter  day; 

far  from  it.     There  are  heavy  clouds  upon 

the  sky.     The  moral  condition  of  humanity 

in  general,  and  of  England  in  particular,  is 

certainly  not  free  from  elements  of  degra- 


290  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

dation  and  threats  of  danger.  Let  me 
quote  two  sentences  from  writers  who  de- 
serve at  least  an  attentive  hearing :  — 

"  British  industrial  existence  seems  fust 
becoming  one  htjge  poison-swamp  of  reek- 
ing pestilence,  physical  and  moral ;  a  living 
Golgotha  of  souls  and  bodies  buried  alive ; 
such  a  Curtius'  gulf  communicating  with 
the  nether  deeps  as  the  sun  never  saw  till 
now."  That  was  what  Thomas  Carlyle 
thought.  And,  after  the  same  fashion, 
Ruskin  wrote :  "  Remember,  for  the  last 
twenty  years,  England  and  all  foreign 
nations,  either  tempting  her  or  following 
her,  have  blasphemed  the  name  of  God 
deliberately  and  openly  ;  and  have  done 
iniquity  by  proclamation,  every  man  doing 
as  much  injustice  to  his  brother  as  it  is  in 
his  power  to  do." 

These  utterances,  like  the  darker  verses  in 
Tennyson's  poem,  are  not  meant  to  be  taken 
as  complete  pictures  of  the  present  time. 
They  are  only  earnest  and  vigorous  warn- 
ings against  the  easy-going,  self-complacent 
optimism  which  talks  as  if  the  millennium 
had  already  dawned.  To  reply  to  them 
by  an  enumeration  of  the  scientific  discov- 
eries which  have  been  made,  and  the  po- 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE.  291 

litical  measures  which  have  been  passed, 
during  the  last  half-century,  is  quite  beside 
the  point.  The  question  remains,  Is  human 
life  really  higher ,  holier,  happier  ? 

The  answer,  if  it  is  thoughtful  as  well  as 
hopeful,  must  be,  A  little.  But  still  the 
strife,  the  shame,  the  suffering,  endure. 

City  children  soak  and  blacken  soul  and  sense  in  city 

slime ; 
There  among  the  glooming  alleys   Progress   halts  on 

palsied  feet, 
Crime  and  hunger  cast  our  maidens  by  the  thousand  on 

the  street. 

If  we  ask  when  and  how  these  things 
shall  cease,  the  reply  comes,  not  from  the 
fairy-tales  of  science  nor  from  the  blue- 
books  of  politics,  but  from  the  heart  of 
Christian  charity  and  from  the  promise  of 
Christian  faith.  And  this  is  the  reply 
which  Tennyson  has  given,  in  words  as 
pure  and  clear  and  musical  as  he  has  ever 
uttered :  — 

Follow  yon  the  Star  that  lights  a  desert  pathway,  yours 

or  mine, 
Forward,  till  you  learn  the  highest  Human  Nature  is 

divine. 

Follow  Light,  and  do  the  Right  —  for  man  can  half  con- 
trol his  doom  — 

Till  yon  see  the  deathless  Angel  seated  in  the  vacant 
Tomb. 


292  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Forward,  let  the  stormy  moment  fly  and  mingle  with  the 
Past. 

I  that  loathed,  have  come  to  love  him.  Love  will  con- 
quer at  the  last. 

The  last  line  recalls  us  once  more  to  the 
personal  interest  of  the  poem,  which,  after 
all,  is  the  strongest.  The  hero  of  Lockdey 
Hall  is  bidding  us  farewell.  He  has  played 
his  part  through.  The  drama  of  life  is 
ended.  In  the  first  act  we  saw  the  youth 
seeking  to  forget  his  private  sorrow  in  the 
largest  public  hopes ;  turning  from  the  lost 
embraces  of  his  "faithless  Amy,"  to  lay 
his  head  upon  the  vast  bosom  of  the  age, 
and  listen  to  the  deep  throbbing  of  cosmic 
hopes.  In  the  second  act  we  see  the  old 
man  seeking  to  forget  his  public  disap- 
pointments in  his  private  affections ;  turn- 
ing back  from  that  hard  and  unrestful 
world-bosom,  where  he  has  heard  nothing 
better  than  the  clank  of  machinery  and 
the  words  of  windy  oratory,  to  find  rest  in 
the  tender  memories  of  Amy  and  Edith, 
and  the  man  whom  time  had  changed  from 
his  enemy  into  his  friend;  and  looking 
forward  to  the  futurs  for  the  fulfilment  of 
his  hopes  in  an  age  not  yet  revealed. 

Who   that   understands    anything  of  a 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE.         293 

young  man's,  or  an  old  man's,  heart  can 
question  the  truth  of  these  two  pictures? 
And  who  will  venture  to  say  that  the  true 
philosophy  of  life  does  not  lie  somewhere 
between  optimism  and  pessimism,  in  that 
steadfast  and  chastened  meliorism  to  which 
old-fashioned  Christianity  makes  its  appeal 
and  gives  its  promise  ? 

n. 

The  volume  entitled  Demeter,  and  Other 
Poems,  which  appeared  at  the  close  of  the 
year  1889,  does  not  contain  any  one  poem 
of  equal  interest  with  the  second  Locksley 
Hall ;  but  it  contains  several  of  more  per- 
fect workmanship,  and  in  its  wide  range  of 
subject  and  style  it  shows  some  of  the  finest 
qualities  of  Tennyson's  poetry. 

Take,  first,  his  sympathetic  interpreta- 
tion of  Nature.  Wordsworth  was  the  leader 
here ;  he  was  the  first  to  lift  Nature  to  the 
level  of  man,  and  utter  in  human  language 
her  most  intimate  meanings;  but  Tenny- 
son has  added  something  to  the  scope  and 
beauty  of  this  kind  of  poetry.  He  has 
caught  more  of  the  throbbing  and  passion- 
ate and  joyous  voices  ot  the  world ;  he  has 
not  entered  so  deeply  into  the  silence  and 


294         THE  POETRY   OF  TENNYSON. 

solemnity  of  guardian  mountains  and  sleep- 
ing lakes  and  broad,  bare  skies  ;  but  lie  has 
felt  more  keenly  the  thrills  and  flushes  of 
Nature  —  the  strange,  sudden,  perplexed, 
triumphant  impulses  of  that  eager  seeking 
and  tremulous  welcoming  of  love  which 
flows  like  life-blood  through  all  animate 
things.  And  so  he  is  at  his  best  with 
Nature  when  he  comes  to  the  springtime. 
The  lines  on  The  Oak  are  Words worthian 
in  their  simplicity;  the  last  stanza  is  a 
model  of  austere  expression  :  — 

All  his  leaves 

Fall'n  at  length, 
Look,  he  stands, 
Trunk  and  bough, 

Naked  strength. 

But  in  The  Throstle  we  have  something 
that  none  but  Tennyson  could  have  writ- 
ten. Immortal  youth  throbs  and  pulses  in 
this  old  man's  song.  The  simple  music  of 
joy,  so  swift  and  free  that  its  cadences 
break  through  and  through  one  another 
and  overflow  the  edges  of  the  verse :  — 

Summer  is  coming,  summer  is  coming, 

I  know  it,  I  know  it,  I  know  it. 
Light  again,  leaf  again,  life  again,  love  again, 

Yes,  my  wild  little  poet. 

That  sings  itself. 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE.         295 

The  poem  of  Demeter,  which  gives  its 
name  to  the  volume,  is  valuable  for  .several 
qualities.  It  is  an  example  of  that  opulent, 
stately,  and  musical  blank  verse  in  which 
Tennyson  was  the  greatest  master  after 
Milton  died.  It  shows  also  his  power  of 
reanimating  an  old-world  legend  with  the 
vivid  feeling  of  present  life.  The  ancient 
myth  of  the  earth-goddess,  whose  daughter 
has  been  snatched  away  into  the  shadowy 
underworld,  is  quickened  by  the  poet's 
genius,  into  an  impassioned  utterance  of 
the  sharp  contrast  between  the  spectral 
existence  of  Hades  and  the  sweet,  homely 
familiarities  of  the  earth,  the  clinging  of 
the  heart  to  simple  mortal  life,  and  the 
preference,  of  its. joys  and  sorrows  to  all 
the  "  hard  eternities  "  of  passionless  gods. 
But  to  my  apprehension,  the  best  quality 
in  this  poem,  and  the  most  vital,  is  its  rev- 
elation of  the  depth  and  power  of  the  poet's 
human  sympathy. 

Somehow  or  other  Demeter's  divinity  is 
forgotten  and  lost  in  her  motherhood. 
Take  that  strong,  sweet,  simple  passage 
which  begins :  — 

Child,  when  thoa  wert  gone 
I  envied  human  wives  and  nested  birds. 


296         TBE  POETRY  OF   TENNYSON. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  express  more 
directly  and  vividly  the  dependence  of  the 
mother  upon  the  babe  who  is  dependent 
upon  her,  the  yearning  of  the  maternal 
breast  toward  the  child  who  has  been  taken 
from  it.  It  is  the  same  generous  love 
which  is  set  to  music  in  the  song  in  Rom- 
ney's  Remorse ;  but  there  the  love  is  not 
robbed  and  disappointed,  but  satisfied  in 
the  outpouring  of  its  riches :  — 

Beat,  little  heart,  I  give  you  this  and  this. 

That  is  the  fragrance,  the  melody,  the 
mystery  of  the  passion  of  motherhood  — 
profound,  simple,  elemental.  And  when  a 
poet  can  feel  and  interpret  that  for  us,  and 
at  the  same  time  express  the  rude  and  mas- 
sive emotions  of  the  stolid  peasant  in  a 
poem  like  Owd  Rod,  and  the  troubled,  sen- 
sitive penitence  of  a  vain,  weak  artist  in  a 
poem  like  Romney\  Remorse,  he  proves 
that  nothing  human  is  foreign  to  him. 

Tennyson's  most  distinctive  trait  —  that 
by  which  he  is  best  known  to  those  who 
know  him  best  —  is  the  power  of  uttering 
a  delicate,  vague,  yet  potent  emotion,  one 
of  those  feelings  which  belong  to  the  twi- 
light of  the  heart,  where  the  light  of  love 


FRUIT  FROM  AN  OLD  TREE.  297 

and  the  shadow  of  regret  are  mingled,  in 
an  exquisite  lyric  which  defines  nothing 
and  yet  makes  everything  clear.  To  this 
class  belong  such  songs  as  "  Tears,  idle 
tears,"  "  Blow,  bugle,  blow,"  and  "  Break, 
break,  break."  And  this  volume  gives  us 
another  lyric  with  the  same  mystical  and 
musical  charm, "  Far  —  far  —  away."  This 
is  a  melody  that  haunts  youth  and  age ;  the 
attraction  of  distance,  the  strange  magic  of 
the  dim  horizon,  the  enchantment  of  even- 
ing bells  ringing  beyond  the  bounds  of 
sight;  these  are  things  so  aerial  and  evan- 
escent that  they  seem  to  elude  words ;  but 
Tennyson  has  somehow  caught  them  in  his 
song. 

But  there  is  something  still  nobler  and 
greater  in  his  poetry.  There  is  a  spiritual 
courage  in  his  work,  a  force  of  faith  which 
conquers  doubt  and  darkness,  a  light  of 
inward  hope  which  burns  dauntless  under 
the  shadow  of  death.  Tennyson  is  the 
poet  of  faith ;  faith,  as  distinguished  from 
cold  dogmatism  and  the  acceptance  of 
traditional  creeds ;  faith,  which  does  not 
ignore  doubt  and  mystery,  but  triumphs 
over  them  and  faces  the  unknown  with 
fearless   heart.     The  poem  entitled    Vast- 


298  TFtE  POETHt  OF  TEttNYSOtt. 

ness  is  an  expression  of  this  faith.  But 
there  is  even  a  finer  quality,-  a  loftier, 
because  a  serener,  power  in  the  poem  with 
which  the  book  closes.  Nothing  that 
Tenuyson  has  ever  written  is  more  beauti- 
ful in  body  and  soul  than  Crossing  the 
Bar. 

Sunset  and  evening  star, 

And  one  clear  call  for  me  ! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  pf  the  bar, 

When  I  put  out  to  sea, 

But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 

Turns  again  home. 

Twilight  and  evening  bell, 

And  after  that  the  dark ! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell, 

When  I  embark ; 

For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face, 

When  I  have  crogt  the  bar. 

That  is  perfect  poetry  —  simple  even 
to  the  verge  of  austerity,  yet  rich  with  all 
the  suggestions  of  wide  ocean  and  waning 
light  and  vesper  bells ;  easy  to  understand 
and  full  of  music,  yet  opening  inward  to 
a  truth  which  has  no  words,  and  pointing 


FRUIT  FROM  .AN    OLD    TREE.  299 

onward  to  a  vision  whisih  transcends  all 
forms  ;  it  is  a  delight  and  a  consolation, 
a  song  for  mortal  ears,  and  a  prelude  to 
the  larger  music  of  immortality. 


in. 

The  Death  of  (Enone,  Ahbar's  Dream, 
and  Other  Poems,  came  out  immediately 
after  Tennyson's  death.  He  was  at  work 
correcting  the  proofs,  with  the  loving  care 
which  he  gave  to  all  the  details  of  his  art, 
when  I  was  his  guest  at  Aldworth  in  the 
last  week  of  August,  1892. 

The  volume,  while  it  is  in  some  respects 
the  slightest  of  all  that  Tennyson  pub- 
lished, containing  no  poem  that  can  be 
ranked  with  his  best,  and  making  no  real 
increment  to  his  fame,  is  certainly  an  ex- 
traordinary piece  of  work  for  a  man  of 
eighty-three  years,  and  does  not  fall  below 
the  general  level  of  his  poetry. 

In  The  Death  of  (Enone  he  returns  to 
one  of  the  classical  subjects  which  charmed 
him  in  his  youth.  In  St.  Telemachus  he 
takes  a  familiar  story  from  the  ecclesias- 
tical history  of  Theodoi  et  —  the  story  of 


300  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

that  first  deed  of  monkish  chivalry  by 
which  the  gladiatorial  shows  at  Rome 
were  broken  up — and  turns  it  into  verse. 
In  Akbar's  Bream  he  touches  the  char- 
acter of  the  famous  Mogul  emperor  whose 
name  was  the  symbol  of  religious  tolerance 
and  breadth  of  mind,  and  whose  endeav- 
our was  to  rule  with  fairness  and  an  even 
hand  over  all  the  people  of  different 
creeds  in  his  vast  dominion.  The  subject 
is  one  which  had  strong  attractions  for 
Tennyson,  and  he  has  handled  it  with 
warm  sympathy.  The  poem  closes  with 
a  brief,  splendid  hymn  to  the  Sun  :  — 

Once  again  thou  flamest  heavenward,  once  again  we  see 

thee  rise. 
Every  morning  is  thy  birthday,  gladdening  human  hearts 
and  eyes. 

Every  morning  here  we  greet  it,  bowing  lowly 
down  before  thee, 
Thee  the  God-like,  thee  the  changeless  in  thine  ever- 
changing  skies. 

Warble  bird,  and  open  flower, 
the  dome  of  azure 

Kneel  adoring   Him   the  Timeless   in   the  flame  that 

measures  Time ! 
Shadow-maker,  shadow-slayer,  arrowing  light  from  clime 

to  clime, 
Hear  thy  myriad  laureates  hail  thee  monarch  in  their 

woodland  rhyme. 


FRUIT  FROM   AN  OLD   TREE.  301 

But  of  still  greater  interest  are  a  few 
short  poems  —  The  Making  of  Man,  Doubt 
and  Prayer,  Faith,  The  Silent  Voices,  God 
and  the  Universe  —  in  which  the  poet  has 
given  utterance  once  more  to  the  deepest 
faith  that  was  in  him :  — 

Spirit,   nearing  yon   dark  portal  at  the  limit  of  thy 

human  state, 
Fear  not  thou  the  hidden  purpose  of  that  Power  which 

alone  is  great, 
Nor  the  myriad  world,   His    shadow,  nor   the    silent 

Opener  of  the  Gate. 

Men  have  assured  us,  in  these  latter 
days,  that  faith  and  art  have  parted  com- 
pany ;  that  faith  is  dead,  and  art  must 
live  for  itself  alone.  But  while  they  were 
saying  these  things  in  melancholy  essays 
and  trivial  verses,  which  denied  a  spiritual 
immortality  and  had  small  prospect  of  a 
literary  one,  the  two  highest  artists  of  the 
century,  Tennyson  and  Browning,  were 
setting  their  music  to  the  keynote  of  an 
endless  lrfe,  and  prophesying  with  the 
harp,  according  as  it  is  written  :  I  believe, 
and  therefore  sing. 


A  POSTSCRIPT 

IN  THE  FORM  OF  A  LETTER  ON  THE 
STUDY  OF  TENNYSON. 


ON  THE   STUDY  OF  TENNYSON: 

To  Miss  Grace  Newlight,  in  Oldport,  near 
Boston. 

My  dear  Miss  Newlight, —  It  is  very 
good  of  you  to  begin  your  letter  by  saying 
that  you  have  read  my  book  on  The  Poetry 
of  Tennyson.  Almost  every  candid  author 
(except,  perhaps,  a  few  who  have  written, 
but  not  published,  in  or  near  your  native 
place)  will  acknowledge  that  he  has  what 
the  precise  French  call  a  faible,  for  the  per- 
sons who  have  voluntarily  become  his  read- 
ers, and  that  he  inclines  to  form  a  high  esti- 
mate of  their  wisdom,  taste,  and  personal 
character.  In  this  weakness  I  share,  and 
take  no  shame  in  confessing  it.  Whether 
the  opening  of  your  letter  was  dictated  by  the 
natural  goodness  of  your  heart,  or  whether 
you  have  added  a  gentle  diplomacy  to  your 
many  other  accomplishments,  you  have  cer- 
tainly put  your  request  for  "  advice  about 
the  best  way  to  study  Tennyson"  in  such  "a 
form  as  to  make  me  sincerely  desirous  of 
offering  you  my  poor  best. 


306  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

Candidly,  then,  and  after  serious  reflec- 
tion, upon  my  literary  honour  and  con- 
science I  believe  that  the  very  best  way  to 
study  any  poet  is  to  read  his  poems. 

There  are  other  ways,  of  course,  perhaps 
easier,  unquestionably  more  in  vogue.  You 
remember  those  profound  lectures  which  Pro- 
fessor Boreham  gave  last  Lent  on  "  The  Pes- 
simism of  Petrarch,"  and  how  many  young 
women  were  stimulated  by  them  to  wear  the 
Laura  hat  and  enter  a  higher  life.  You 
know  also  the  charming  Mrs.  Lucy  Liebig, 
in  whose  "  Class  for  General  Information  " 
it  is  possible  to  get  the  extractum  carnis  of 
several  modern  poets  in  an  hour,  so  that  one 
can  thereafter  speak  of  all  their  principal 
characters  with  familiarity,  and  even  with 
accuracy.  You  have  been  a  member  of  the 
"  Society  for  the  Elucidation  of  the  Minor 
Moral  Problems  in  Sordello,"  and  a  sub- 
scriber to  The  Literary  Peptone,  whose  ac- 
complished reviewers  have  made  the  task  of 
digesting  a  book  for  one's  self  seem  like  an 
obsolete  superfluity.  With  all  of  these  de- 
vices for  poetical  study,  so  entertaining  and 
in  their  way  so  useful,  you  are  familiar. 
But,  after  all,  if  you  really  care  to  know  and 
love  a  poet,  I  must  commend  you  to  the  sim- 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  307 

pie  and  old-fashioned  plan  of  reading  him. 
Nothing  can  take  the  place  of  that. 

And  with  Tennyson,  believe  me,  you  will 
not  find  this  plan  difficult.  It  is  not  an 
adventure  for  which  you  will  need  great 
preparation  or  many  confederates.  You 
may  safely  undertake  it  alone,  and  for  plea- 
sure. Here  and  there,  especially  in  The 
Princess,  there  are  hard  places  where  good 
notes  will  help  you.  And  perhaps  with  a 
few  poems,  notably  with  In  Memoriam,  one 
wants  an  analysis  or  commentary.  But  in 
the  main  Tennyson  is  a  clear  poet,  and  there- 
fore a  delightful  one.  The  only  book  which 
is  indispensable  for  understanding  him  is 
that  thick,  green  volume  which  bears  on  its 
back  the  title  The  Works  of  Tennyson. 
Get  a  copy  of  this  book  for  your  very  own  ; 

—  and  if  you  are  wise,  you  will  get  one  that 
is  not  too  fine  for  you  to  mark  on  the  mar- 
gin, and  if  you  have  a  tender  conscience, 
you  will  get  one  that  has  not  been  pirated  ; 

—  take  it  with  you  into  a  quiet  place,  among 
the  mountains,  or  on  the  seashore,  or  by 
your  fireside,  and  read  it  with  a  free  mind 
and  a  fresh  heart.  Read,  not  as  if  you  were 
preparing  for  an  examination  or  getting 
ready  to  make  an  index,  —  but  read  for  the 


308  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

sake  of  seeing  what  the  poet  has  seen,  and 
feeling  what  he  has  felt,  and  knowing  what 
he  has  thought,  —  read  the  book  not  for  idle 
pastime,  but  for  noble  pleasure  ;  not  for  dry 
T^knowledge,  but  for  living  wisdom ;  and  if 
*  you  read  thus,  I  am  sure  it  will  do  for  you 
what  Dr.  Johnson  said  that  every  good, 
great  book  ought  to  do,  —  it  will  help  you 
to  enjoy  life  and  teach  you  to  endure  it. 

Now  I  am  perfectly  sure  that  you  are  not 
a  member  of  the  tribe  of  the  Philistines,  and 
therefore  you  will  not  think  of  reading  such 
a  book  as  you  would  read  a  treatise  on  logic, 
straight  through,  from  the  first  page  to  the 
last.  You  will  want  a  plan,  a  principle  of 
order  to  direct  your  reading.  The  first 
question  you  will  ask  is,  Where  to  begin 
among  the  poems,  and  how  to  continue  ?  Is 
it  possible  to  classify  them  ?  Can  we  "get  a 
line  through  Tennyson,"  which  may  help  us 
to  understand  the  meaning  of  his  works,  and 
their  relation  to  each  other  ? 

Well,  as  to  classification,  I  am  not  inclined 
to  set  a  very  high  value  upon  it  in  the  study 
of  poetry.  There  are  certain  broad  divisions 
which  can  be  made,  —  none  better,  after  all, 
than  the  old  Greek  trichoinetry  of  epic,  lyric, 
and  dramatic,  corresponding  to  the  intellect, 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  309 

the  emotions,  and  the  will.  But  unless  you 
use  this  division  in  a  strictly  formal  and  me- 
chanical fashion,  it  will  not  be  possible  to 
make  the  works  of  Tennyson,  or  of  any  other 
modern  poet,  fit  into  it  exactly.  You  will 
find  that  some  of  the  poems  do  not  belong 
to  any  one  of  the  three  divisions,  and  others 
plainly  belong  to  several.  You  will  not 
know  at  all  what  to  do  with  Maud,  orjjocks- 
ley  Hall,  or  The  Palace  of  Art,  or  Ulysses, 
unless  you  put  them  into  a  border  land. 
And  when  it  comes  to  more  minute  classifi- 
cation, on  the  lines  of  psychology,  —  Poems 
of  Reflection,  Poems  of  Imagination,  Poems 
of  Fancy,  Poems  of  Sentiment,  and  the  like, 
—  I  doubt  whether  even  a  great  poet  can 
accomplish  such  a  thing  with  his  own  works 
successfully.  Wordsworth  tried  it,  you  know ; 
and  Matthew  Arnold,  an  avowed  Words- 
worthian,  confessed  that  it  was  not  worth 
much.  The  first  of  Browning's  commenta- 
tors, Mr.  Nettleship,  made  an  even  more 
elaborate  analysis  of  that  master's  poems  in 
the  first  edition  of  JZssays  and  Thoughts. 
Here  is  a  specimen  of  it :  — 

"  II.  A.  Poems  not  strictly  dramatic  in  form, 
but  which  deal  with  the  history,  or  some  incident 
in  the  history,  of  the  souls  of  two  or  more  individ- 


310         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

uals  mutually  acting  on  each  other  towards  (1) 
progress,  or  (2)  arrest,  in  development." 

But  in  his  second  edition  Mr.  Nettleship, 
with  amiable  frankness,  makes  fun  of  his 
own  analysis.  I  would  rather  not  attempt 
anything  of  the  kind  with  Tennyson's  poems, 
even  for  the  pleasure  of  ridiculing  my  own 
failure  afterwards. 

But  though  an  exact  classification  may  be 
useless  or  impossible,  a  general  order,  a 
broad  grouping  of  the  poems  for  the  purpose 
of  comprehending  them  as  a  whole,  might 
be  helpful,  and  not  too  difficult  to  make  it 
worth  trying.  It  would  serve,  at  least,  as  a 
guide  to  your  reading,  and  bring  together 
the  poems  which  are  most  closely  related  in 
spirit  and  manner.  I  beg  you,  then,  to 
accept  what  follows,  not  as  a  classification, 
but  simply  as 

AN  ARRANGEMENT  OF  TENNYSON'S  POEMS. 

I.   MELODIES   AND    PICTURES. 

Claribel. 

Leonine  Elegiacs. 
Nothing  will  Die.  v  *3  ' 
All  Things  will  Die. :   «" 
is  "  The  winds  as  at  their  hour  of  birth." 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  311 

The  Owl.  r 

The  Dying  Swan.  V 

The  Blackbird.  "   1 1 
u  The  Throstle. 
u  The  Snowdrop, 
u  Early  Spring. 

Far  —  Far  —  Away. 
I  "Move  eastward,  happy  Earth."  ,u 
i-  "  A  Spirit  haunts  the  year's  last  hours.'1  *"*  % 
i  The  Death  of  the  Old  Year.  if<g 

A  Farewell,  /ol 
^  A  Dirge.  ^ 

The  Merman.^ 

The  Mermaid. 

The  Sea-Fairies.  K 

The  Lotos-Eaters.  ^H 

Child-Songs. 

The  Song  of  the  Wrens. 

TheKraken.  +*r 
The  Eagle.  *"o 
The  Oak. 

Recollections  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  "" 
Ode  to  Memory.  K 
The  Progress  of  Spring. 
L  The  Daisy.  >3*V 
Mariana.  V 

Mariana  in  the  South.  ^ 
A  Dream  of  Fair  Women.  W** 
The  Day-Dream. 


312  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSOA. 

The  Beggar-Maid,  v  I  *1 

Isabel. »/ 

Lilian.  1/ 

Madeline.  / 

Adeline.  1/    q 

Margaret.  *     .^ 

Rosalind.  ^^ 

Eleanore.  u 

Sir  Launcelot  and  Queen  Guinevere. tf  i°1 

The  Lady  of  Shalott.  * 

II.   STORIES   AND   PORTRAITS. 

Ballads. 

1.  Oriana.  ^** 

The  Sisters.  Hf\ 

The  May-Queen.  1U 

In  the  Children's  Hospital  „s"  1 

Edward  Gray.  1  ** 

The  Letters.  I  ^ 

Lady  Clare.  ^'°^ 

The  Lord  of  Burleigh,  t  °  *" 

The  Captain.**  L* 

The  Victim.  \  "A 

The  Revenge,  t e  T 

The  Defence  of  Lucknow.  ^  * D 

The  Voyage  of  Maeldune.  C  l>  "* 

The  First  Quarrel  (,  Wo 

Forlorn. 

Happy. 

The  Bandit's  Death, 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  Si 3 

Idytts. 

2.  Audley  Court.   *  L 
Walking  to  the  Mail.  1 1 
Edwin  Morris.       ^  ^ 
The  Golden  Year.  i>0 
The  Brook.  2_vi" 
Sea  Dreams,   i  4  ^ 
The  Lover's  Tale.  <p  '  ^ 
The  Sisters.  3  0 
The  Ring. 

The  Miller's  Daughter.  f-^ 
The  Talking  Oak.  7  $"" 
The  Gardener's  Daughter,  i  1 
Godiva.3^ 
CEnone.^ 

The  Death  of  QEnone. 
Dora.  L  3 

Enoch  Arden.  3  \  i 
Aylmer's  Field.  ^^ 

Cha  racter-Pieces. 
3.  A  Character,  f 
Love  and  Duty.  7  ^ 
Tithonus.  ]3^'° 
Teiresias.  L  Classical. 
Demeter.  J 
Lucretius.  ^u 
Ulysses.3v  I  Historical, 
Columbus.  (Jto 


£14         THE  POETRY  OF  TF.NNtSOtf. 

Akbar's  Dream. 
St  Telemachus. 
St.  Simeon  Styliteslij-  Historical 
Sir  John  Oldcastle. 
Romney's  Remorse. 
Fatima.^^  1 

St.  Agnes'  Eve.  V  Mystical. 
Sir  Galahad  A  A   I 
Amphion.<\^ 
Will  Waterproofs  •» 
,/      The  Northern  Farmer.    Old  Style. 
\7   The  Northern  Farmer.    New  Style. 
"  The  Churchwarden  and  the  Curate. 
The  Northern  Cobbler>+t 
The  Village  Wife.  I»b* 
The  Spinster's  Sweet-Arts. 
Owd  Roa. 
To-morrow. 
The  Grandmother.^ 
Rizpah.>> 
Despair. 
The  Wreck. 
The  Flight. 
Charity. 

Locksley  Hall.' b* 

Locksley  HalL  Sixty  Years  After. 
Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere.  V> 

Maud.  v>^ 

ui.   EPICS. 

The  Princess. 
Idylls  of  the  King. 


,rl. 

Humorous 

and 
Dialect. 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  315 

IV.    DRAMAS. 

Queen  Mary.  ] 

Harold.  V  The  Trilogy. 

Becket. 

The  Cup. 

The  Falcon. 

The  Promise  of  May. 

The  Foresters. 

V.   PATRIOTIC   AND  PERSONAL. 

"  You  ask  me  why,  tho'  ill  at  ease." 
'/  *  Love  thou  thy  land." 
*£  Of  old  sat  Freedom  on  the  heights." 

Freedom. 

England  and  America  in  1782. 

The  Third  of  February,  1852. 

Ode  on  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 

Hands  all  Round. 

The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade. 

Prologue  to  General  Hamley. 

The  Charge  of  the  Heavy  Brigade. 

Epilogue. 

To  the  Queen.     "  Revered,  beloved." 

To  the  Queen.    "  O  loyal  to  the  royal  in  thy- 
self." 

Dedication  to  Prince  Albert. 

A  Welcome  to  Alexandra. 

A  Welcome  to  Alexandrovua. 


316  THE  FOETKY  OF  TENNYSON". 

Dedication  to  the  Princess  Alice. 
To  the  Marquis  of  Dufferin. 
To  the  Duke  of  Argyll. 
To  the  Princess  Beatrice. 
To  the  Princess  Fiederica  of  Hanover. 
Politics. 
Beautiful  City. 

To  one  who  ran  down  the  English. 
Ode  for  the  International  Exhibition. 
Opening  of  the  Indian  and  Colonial  Exhibi- 
tion. 
On  the  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria. 
The  Fleet. 
On  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence. 

To  "  Clear-headed  friend." 

To  J.  S.     (James  Spedding.) 

To  E.  L.,  on  his  Travels  in  Greece.  (Ed- 
mund Lear.) 

To  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Maurice. 

A  Dedication.     (To  his  wife.) 

In  the  Garden  of  Swainston.  (Sir  John 
Simeon.) 

To  E.  Fitzgerald. 

To  Alfred  Tennyson,  my  Grandson. 

Prefatory  to  my  Brother's  Sonnets. 

Sir  John  Franklin, 
Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe, 
]  General  Gordon. 
[  Caxton. 
To  Ulysses.     (W.  G.  Palgrave.) 


Epitaphs  on 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  317 

The  Roses  on  the  Terrace. 

To  Mary  Boyle. 

To  Professor  Jebb. 

In  Memoriam  —  William  George  Ward. 


VI.   POEMS   OF  THE   INNER   LIFE. 

Of  Art. 

1.  The  Poet. 

The  Poet's  Mind. 
The  Poet's  Song. 
?*-  The  Palace  of  Art. 
Merlin  and  the  Gleam. 
The  Flower. 
The  Spiteful  Letter. 
Literary  Squabbles. 

"  You  might  have  won  the  Poet's  name. 
The  Dead  Prophet. 
Poets  and  their  Bibliographies. 
Frater  Ave  atque  Vale. 
Parnassus. 
To  Virgil. 
To  Milton. 
To  Dante. 
To  Victor  Hugo. 

Of  Life,  Love,  and  Death. 

2.  The  Deserted  House. 
Love  and  Death. 
Circumstance. 

The  Voyage. 


318  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

The  Islet. 

The  Sailor-Boy. 

The  Vision  of  Sin. 

The  Voice  and  the  Peak. 

Will. 

Wages. 

"  Flower  in  the  crannied  wall." 

"  My  life  is  full  of  weary  days." 

"  Come  not,  when  I  am  dead." 

Requiescat. 

On  a  Mourner. 

"  Break,  break,  break." 

In  the  Valley  of  Cauteretz. 

Of  Doubt  and  Faith. 

3.  Supposed  Confessions. 
The  Two  Voices. 
The  Ancient  Sage. 
By  an  Evolutionist. 
In  Memoriam. 
The  Higher  Pantheism. 
De  Profundis. 
Vastness. 
Crossing  the  Bar. 
Faith. 

The  Silent  Voices. 
God  and  the  Universe. 
Doubt  and  Prayer. 

This  arrangement  may  be  imperfect,  but  I 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON. 


319 


think,  at  least,  that  it  omits  nothing  of 
importance,  that  it  is  constructed  on  the 
lines  of  poetic  development,  and  that  it  will 
be  easy  to  discover  the  inward  relationship 
and  coherence  of  the  principal  groups,  so 
that  you  can  follow  a  clue  from  poem  to 
poem. 

You  will  do  well  to  begin  with  the  Melo- 
dies and  Pictures,  because  Tennyson  began 
with  them,  and  because  they  belong  to  the 
lowest  form  of  his  art,  although  it  is  the  form 
in  which  he  has  done  some  of  his  most  ex- 
quisite work.  There  are  many  people  —  and 
not  altogether  illiterate  people  —  who  still 
think  of  him  chiefly  as  a  "  maker  of  musical 
phrases."  Well,  he  is  that ;  and  he  meant 
to  be  that,  in  order  that  he  might  be  some- 
thing more.  At  the  very  outset,  he  sought 
to  win  the  power  of  expressing  sensuous 
beauty  in  melodious  language.  The  things 
seen  and  heard,  the  rhythm,  the  colour,  the 
harmony  of  the  outward  world,  —  these  were 
the  things  that  haunted  him,  and  these,  first 
of  all,  he  desired  to  convey  into  his  verse. 
He  threw  himself  with  all  the  passion  of 
youth  upon  the  task  of  rendering  them  per- 
fectly. 


-t 


320  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

I  call  it  a  task,  because  no  man  has  ever 
done  this  kind  of  work  by  chance.  Even 
to  the  painting  of  a  simple  flower,  or  the 
making  of  a  little  song,  perfectly,  there  goes 
an  infinite  deal  of  preparation,  of  learning, 
of  effort;  sometimes  it  is  conscious,  some- 
times unconscious ;  sometimes  it  is  direct, 
sometimes  it  is  indirect;  but  always  it  is 
there,  behind  the  music,  behind  the  picture ; 
for  no  one  can  do  anything  good  in  any  art 
without  labour  for  the  mastery  of  its  little 
secrets  which  are  so  hard  to  learn. 

If,  then,  you  find  some  traces  of  effort  in 
Tennyson's  first  melodies  and  pictures,  like 
Ele'dnore,  The  Mermaid,  Recollections  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  you  will  say  that  this  is  be- 
cause he  has  not  yet  learned  to  conceal  the  ef- 
fort; and  if  you  find  that  in  the  best  of  them, 
like  The  Lotos-Eaters  and  The  Lady  of  Sha- 
lott,  the  chief  interest  still  lies  in  the  sound, 
the  form,  the  colour,  you  will  say  that  it  is  be- 
cause he  has  set  himself  to  conquer  the  tech- 
nique of  his  art,  and  to  render  the  music  and 
the  vision  beautifully,  for  the  sake  of  their 
beauty.  Mr.  R.  H.  Hutton,  who  does  not 
always  see  the  bearing  of  his  own  criticisms, 
has  said,  "  Tennyson  was  an  artist  even  be- 
fore he  was  a  poet."    That  is  true,  but  it  does 


THE  STUDY   OF  TENNYSON.  321 

not  take  anything  away  from  his  greatness 
to  admit  such  an  obvious  fact.  Giotto  was 
a  draughtsman  before  he  was  a  painter.  Mo- 
zart was  a  pianist  before  he  was  a  musician. 
If  you  are  wise,  then,  you  will  look  chiefly 
for  the  charm  of  perfect  expression  in  these 
melodies  and  pictures.  Take  a  little  piece 
which  has  stood  on  the  first  page  of  Ten- 
nyson's poems  for  sixty  years,  Chirlbel.  It 
does  not  mean  much.  Indeed,  its  charm 
might  be  less  if  its  meaning  were  greater.  It 
is  mere  music,  —  every  word  like  a  soft,  clear 
note,  —  each  with  its  own  precise  value,  and 
yet  all  blending  in  a  simple  effect.  The 
difference  between  the  sound  of  the  quiet 
wave  "outwelling"  from  the  spring,  and 
the  swift  runlet  "crisping"  over  the  pebbles, 
is  distinct ;  the  "  beetle  boometh  "  in  another 
tone  from  that  in  which  the  "wild  bee 
hummeth ; "  but  all  the  sounds  come  together 
in  a  sad,  gentle  cadence  with  the  ending 

eth :  — 

Where  Claribel  low-lieth. 

In  the  picture  poems  you  will  find  a  great 
deal  of  pre-Raphaelite  work.  It  is  exact  and 
vivid,  even  to  the  point  of  seeming  often  too 
minute.  It  is  worth  while  to  notice  the  colour 
words;  hb^ewthey  are,  and  yet  how  per- 


A 


322    THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

fectly  they  do  their  work!  Here  are  two 
lines  from  the  Ode  to  Memory :  — 

What  time  the  amber  morn 

Forth  gushes  from  beneath  a  low-hong  cloud. 

That  "amber"  sheds  all  the  splendour  of 
daybreak  over  the  landscape. 

And  here,  again,  is  a  stanza  from  The 
Lady  of  Shalott :  — 

Willows  whiten,  aspens  quiver, 
Little  breezes  dusk  and  shiver 
Thro'  the  wave  that  runs  for  ever 
By  the  island  in  the  river 

Flowing  down  to  Camelot. 
Four  gray  walls,  and  four  gray  towera, 
Overlook  a  space  of  flowers, 
And  the  silent  isle  imbowers 

The  Lady  of  Shalott. 

How  exquisite  is  the  word  "whiten"  to 
describe  the  turning  of  the  long  willow-leaves 
in  the  wind,  and  how  well  it  suggests  the 
cool  colouring  of  the  whole  picture,  all  in  low 
tones,  except  the  little  spot  of  flowers  below 
the  square,  gray  castle. 

I  do  not  think  that  this  is  the  greatest 
kind  of  poetry,  but  certainly  it  has  its  own 
value,  and  we  ought  to  be  grateful  for 
it.  The  perfection  to  which  Tennyson  has 
brought  it  has  added  a  new  sweetness  and 
fluency  to  our  language.     Just  as  a  violin 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  323 

gains  a  richer  and  mellower  tone  by  the  long 
and  loving  touch  of  a  master,  so  the  English 
language  has  been  enriched  and  softened  by 
the  use  that  Tennyson  has  made  of  it  in  his 
beauty-poems. 

But  already  we  can  see  that  something 
deeper  and  stronger  is  coming  into  these 
beauty-poems.  The  melodies  begin  to  have 
a  meaning,  the  pictures  begin  to  have  a  soul. 
Of  many  of  the  young  women  in  his  gallery 
of  female  figures,  —  Lilian,  Adeline,  Made- 
line, and  the  rest,  —  it  may  be  said  in  Tenny- 
son's own  words :  — 

The  form,  the  form  alone  is  eloquent, 

but  in  Isabel  we  see  a  character  behind  the 
form,  and  the  beauty  of  her  nature  makes 
her  sisters  seem  vague  and  unreal  beside  her. 
The  Lady  of  Shalott,  which  I  have  placed 
last  among  the  Melodies  and  Pictures,  is  in 
effect  a  mystical  ballad,  foreshadowing  the 
transition  from  the  dream-world  of  fancy  to 
the  real  world  of*  human  joy  and  sorrow. 
And  so  we  come  to  the  second  group  of 
poems,  the  Stories  and  Portraits. 

The  interest  here  centres  in  life  and  per- 
sonality. It  is  some  tale  of  human  love,  or 
heroism,  or  suffering,  that  the  poet  tells ;  and 


324         THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

then  we  have  a  Ballad.  Or  it  is  some  pic- 
ture that  he  paints,  not  for  its  own  sake  alone, 
but  to  make  it  the  vehicle  of  human  feeling ; 
and  then  we  have  an  Idyll,  —  that  is,  a  scene 
coloured  and  interpreted  by  an  emotion.  Or 
it  is  some  character  that  he  depicts,  some  liv- 
ing personality  that  he  clothes  with  language, 
either  in  a  meditative  soliloquy  which  shows 
it  in  all  its  breadth  of  sentiment  and  thought, 
or  in  a  lyrical  outburst  from  some  intense 
mood ;  and  then  we  have  what  I  have  ven- 
tured to  call  a  Character-Piece.  The  lines 
between  these  three  divisions  cannot  be  very 
clearly  drawn.  I  have  been  much  in  doubt 
as  to  the  best  place  for  some  of  the  poems. 
But  there  is  a  real  difference  among  them, 
after  all,  in  the  predominance  of  the  narra- 
tive, the  descriptive,  or  the  dramatic  spirit ; 
and  you  will  feel  the  difference  as  you  read 
them. 

In  the  Ballads  I  think  you  will  feel  that 
the  secret  of  their  charm  lies  quite  as  much 
in  their  human  sympathy  as  in  the  perfection 
of  their  art.  The  clearer,  simpler,  more 
pathetic  the  story,  the  more  absolutely  does 
it  control  and  clarify  the  music.  The  best 
of  them  are  those  in  which  the  beauty  comes 
from  delicate  notes,  so  slight  that  one  hardly 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  325 

hears  them,  though  their  effect  is  magical. 
How  much  the  pathos  of  The  May  Queen 
is  enhanced  by  the  naive  touch  in  these 
verses : — 

O  look !  the  sun  begins  to  rise,  the  heavens  are  in  a  glow ; 
lie  shines  upon  a  hundred  fields,  and  all  of  them  I  know. 
And  there  I  move  no  longer  now,  and  there  his  light  ruay 

shine  — 
Wild  flowers  in  the  valley  for  other  hands  than  mine. 

Or  listen  to  the  last  lines  of  The  Lord  of 
Burleigh:  — 

Then  her  people,  softly  treading, 

Bore  to  earth  her  body,  drest 
In  the  dress  that  she  was  wed  in, 

That  her  spirit  might  hava  rest. 

This  is  perfect  simplicity,  —  words  of  com- 
mon life,  charged  with  the  richest  and  ten- 
derest  poetic  meaning.  No  less  simple  in 
its  way  —  which  is  utterly  different  —  is  the 
glorious  fighting  ballad  of  The  Revenge. 
It  is  the  passion  of  daring,  now,  that  carries 
the  poem  onward  in  its  strong,  heroic  move- 
ment. There  is  not  a  redundant  ornament  / 
in  the  whole  ballad.  Every  simile  that  it 
contains  is  full  of  swift  motion. 

At  Flores  in  the  Azores,  Sir  Richard  Grenville  lay, 
And  a  pinnace,  like  a  flutter'' d  bird,  came  flying  from  far 
away. 


-£ 


326  ri^E  POETRY  OF  TENNY80K. 

So  Lord  Howard  past  away  with  fire  ships  of  war  that 

day, 
Till  he  melted  like  a  cloud  in  the  silent  summer  heaven. 

Sir  Richard  spoke,  and  he  langh'd,  and  we  roar'd  a 

hurrah,  and  so 
The  little  "  Revenge  "  ran  on  sheer  into  the  heart  of  the  foe. 

Among  the  Idylls  you  will  find  a  great 
difference.  In  some  of  them  the  pictorial 
element  seems  to  count  for  more  than  the 
human  feeling,  —  and  these  I  think  are  the 
poorest.  Of  such  slight  sketches  as  Audley 
Court  and  Edwin  Morris,  all  that  can  be 
said  is  that  they  have  pretty  passages  in 
them.  Tennyson  was  right  in  caring  little 
for  The  Lover's  Tale.  Aylmer's  Field  is 
weaker  than  Enoch  Arden  just  in  so  far  as 
it  is  more  ornate  and  complicated.  Dora  is 
the  best  of  all,  and  I  doubt  whether  you  can 
discover  one  metaphor,  or  figure  of  speech, 
or  decorative  adjective  in  the  whole  poem. 
It  moves  like  the  Book  of  Ruth,  in  beauty 
unadorned. 

In  the  character-pieces  you  will  be  im- 
pressed, first  of  all,  by  the  breadth  of  their 
range.  They  touch  the  whole  circle  of 
humanity,  from  the  Roman  philosopher  to 
the  English  peasant ;  they  even  go  beyond 
it,  and  breathe  into  the  ancient  myths,  like 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON  327 

Tithonus  and  Demeter,  human  life  and  pas- 
sion. Some  of  them  are  humorous,  as  Will 
Waterproof  and  The  Northern  Farmer; 
and  others  are  mystical,  as  St.  Agnes'  Eve 
and  Sir  Galahad;  and  others  are  passion- 
ate, springing  out  of  the  depths  of  life's 
tragedy,  as  The  Wreck  and  Despair.  But 
almost  without  exception  they  are  true  and 
distinct  portraits  of  persons. 

And  then  you  will  observe  that  (with  one 
early  exception,  A  Character)  they  are  all 
dramatic.     The  characters  are  not  described ; 
they  speak  for  themselves,  either  in  blank- 
verse    monologues,   or   in   dramatic   lyrics. 
The  first  is  the  form  that  is  used  chiefly  when 
the  mental  quality  is  to  be  expressed.     The 
second  is  the  form  chosen  to  reveal  the  emo- 
tional quality.     In  all  of  them,  the  thing 
that  you  will  look  for,  and  the  test  by  which 
you  will  value  the  poems,  is  the  truth  of  the 
thought  and  the  utterance  to  the  character 
from  which  they  come.     And  I  think  that 
most  of  them  will  stand  the  test.     If  Mr. 
Swinburne  had  written  them  he  might  have 
made  Ulysses  and  Columbus  and  Sir  Gala- 
had and  the  Northern  Cobbler  all  speak  the 
Swinburnian  dialect.     Mr.  Browning  might 
have  set  them  all  to   analyzing  their  own 


328  THE  POETRY  OF  TEXXYSOX. 

souls,  and  talking  metaphysics.  But  with 
Tennyson  each  character  speaks  in  a  native 
voice,  and  thinks  the  thoughts  which  belong 
to  him.  Take  the  subject  of  Love,  and  hear 
what  the  Northern  Farmer  has  to  say  of 
it:  — 

Luw  ?    What 's  luw  ?    thou  can  luw  thy  lass  an'  'er 

munny  too, 
Maakin'  'em  goa  togither,  as  they  've  good  right  to  do. 
Could  n'  I  luw  thy  muther  by  cause  o'  'er  munny  laaid 

by? 
Naay  —  for  I  luw'd  'er  a  vast  sight  moor  fur  it:  reason 

why. 

And  then  listen  to  the  hero  of  Lock&ley 
Hall:  — 

Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life,  and  smote  on  all  the  chords 

with  might; 
Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling,  passed  in  music 

out  of  sight. 

Or  take  the  passion  of  exploration,  the 
strong  desire  to  push  out  across  new  seas 
into  new  worlds,  and  mark  how  differently  it 
is  felt  and  expressed  by  Ulysses  and  Colum- 
bus. Ulysses  is  the  "  much-experienced 
man,"  with  a  thirst  for  seeing  and  knowing 
which  cannot  be  satiated  :  — 

I  cannot  rest  from  travel :   I  will  drink 
Life  to  the  lees :   all  times  I  have  enjoy'd 
Greatly,  have  suffer' d  greatly     .     .     . 


THE  STUDY  OF  TEtiNYSON  329 

.     .     .     I  am  become  a  name  ; 

For  always  roaming  with  a  hungry  heart 

Much  have  I  seen  and  known  ;  cities  of  men, 

And  manners,  climates,  councils,  governments, 

Myself  not  least,  but  honour'd  of  them  all ; 

And  drunk  delight  of  battle  with  my  peers, 

Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  windy  Troy. 

I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have  met ; 

Yet  all  experience  is  as  an  arch  wherethro' 

Gleams  that  untravell'd  world,  whose  margin  fades 

For  ever  and  for  ever  when  I  move. 

This  is  the  deep  impulse  of  motion  without  a 
goal,  the  mere  JReise-lust  of  a  restless  heart. 
But  Columbus  is  a  man  with  a  mission.  It 
is  the  glory  of  Spain  and  the  spread  of  the 
Catholic  faith  that  drives  him  to  seek  an 
undiscovered  continent :  — 

I  pray  you  tell 
King  Ferdinand,  who  plays  with  me,  that  one, 
Whose  life  has  been  no  play  with  him  and  his 
Hidalgos  —  shipwrecks,  famines,  fevers,  fights, 
Mutinies,  treacheries  —  wink'd  at,  and  condoned  — 
That  I  am  loyal  to  him  till  the  death, 
And  ready  —  tho'  our  Holy  Catholic  Queen, 
Who  fain  had  pledged  her  jewels  on  my  first  voyage, 
Whose  hope  was  mine  to  spread  the  Catholic  faith, 
Who  wept  with  me  when  I  return' d  in  chains, 
Who  sits  beside  the  blessed  Virgin  now, 
To  whom  I  send  my  prayer  by  night  and  day  — 
She  is  gone  —  but  you  will  tell  the  King,  that  I, 
Rack'd  as  I  am  with  gout,  and  wrench'd  with  pains 
Gain' J  in  the  service  of  His  Highness,  yet 
Am  ready  to  sail  forth  on  one  last  voyage, 
And  readier,  if  the  King  would  hear,  to  lead 


330  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

One  last  crusade  against  the  Saracen, 
And  save  the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  thrall. 

Or  take  the  subject  of  death.  To  the 
weary  philosopher  Lucretius,  resolved  on 
suicide,  it  means  simply  absorption  into 
Nature :  — 

O  Thou, 
Passionless  bride,  divine  Tranquillity, 
Yearn'd  after  by  the  wisest  of  the  wise, 
Who  fail  to  find  thee,  being  as  thou  art 
Without  one  pleasure  and  without  one  pain, 
Howbeit  I  know  thou  surely  must  be  mine 
Or  soon  or  late,  yet  out  of  season,  thus 
I  woo  thee  roughly,,  for  thou  carest  not 
How  roughly  men  may  woo  thee  so  they  win  — 
Thus  —  thus :  the  soul  flies  out  and  dies  in  the  air. 

But  to  the  peasant  mother  in  Rizpah  it  means 
the  fulfilment  and  recompense  of  her  intense, 
unquestioning  passion  of  maternity :  — ■ 

Election,  Election  and  Reprobation  —  it 's  all  very  welL 
But  I  go  to-night  to  my  boy,  and  I  shall  not  find  him  in 

Hell 
For  I  cared  so  much  for  my  boy  that  the  Lord  has  look'd 

into  my  care, 
And  He  means  me  I  'm  sure  to  be  happy  with  Willy,  I 

know  not  where. 

Nothing  could  be  sharper  than  the  con- 
trasts among  these  six  poems ;  nothing  more 
perfect  than  the  consistency  of  thought  and 
feeling  and  utterance,  with  the  character  in 
each. 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  331 

Maud)  the  largest  of  the  character-pieces, 
differs  from  the  others  in  its  method.  It  is 
lyrical  in  form;  but  instead  of  being  a 
dramatic  lyric,  it  is  a  lyrical  drama.  It  has 
all  the  elements  of  interest  which  belong  to 
the  drama,  —  change  of  scene,  development 
of  plot,  sudden  catastrophe ;  and,  although 
only  one  of  the  characters  appears  upon  the 
stage,  the  others  are  felt  in  the  story.  It  is 
a  wonderfully  consistent  and  searching  study 
of  the  action  of  romantic  love  and  tragic 
error  upon  a  mind  with  a  taint  of  hereditary 
insanity.  There  is  but  one  speaker  in  the 
poem  ;  but  a  marvellous  effect  of  variety  is 
given  to  it  by  the  changes  in  rhythm  and 
style  in  the  different  cantos.  Tennyson  has" 
never  written  anything  which  is  richer  in 
music  or  more  alive  with  passionate  feeling. 
The  metre  sometimes  seems  irregular,  but 
there  is  always  an  air,  a  movement,  a  rhyth- 
mic beat  which  underlies  it ;  and  when  you 
have  found  that,  you  understand  how  per- 
fectly melodious  it  is.  The  chief  beauty  of 
the  poem  lies  in  the  clearness  with  which 
it  shows  the  redeeming,  healing,  purifying 
power  of  love.  It  transforms  the  hero  from 
a  selfish  misanthrope  to  a  true  man. 

Of  Tennyson's  complete  dramas,  I  have 


332  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

said  elsewhere  that  which  seemed  to  me 
needful  and  fitting.  Let  me  only  beg  you 
to  study  them  for  yourself,  —  at  least  the 
historic  trilogy,  —  and  not  to  be  satisfied 
with  taking  the  judgment  of  other  people. 

The  finished  epics,  also,  I  have  tried  to 
criticise  in  another  place.  The  Princess  is 
the  one  of  Tennyson's  poems  which  stands 
most  in  need  of  notes.  It  is  fortunate  that 
they  have  been  supplied  by  such  an  accom- 
plished scholar  as  Dr.  W.  J.  Rolfe,  in  his 
annotated  edition.  For  my  own  part,  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  this  very  need,  which 
must  arise  from  obscurity  in  the  allusions 
and  complexity  in  the  diction,  marks  the 
poem  as  belonging  to  a  lower  order  than 
Tennyson's  best. 

The  epic  entitled  Idylls  of  the  King,  be- 
sides its  interest  as  the  broadest  and  noblest 
piece  of  imaginative  work  that  Tennyson  has 
done,  is  the  poem  in  which  you  may  most 
wisely  make  a  careful  study  of  his  poetic 
manner.  It  is  common  to  speak  of  the 
Idylls  as  a  gorgeous  mediaeval  tapestry,  full 
of  rich  colour  and  crowded  with  elaborately 
wrought  figures.  But  I  should  like  you  to 
discover  whether  there  is  not  something: 
more  precious  in  them ;   whether  the   very 


THE  STUDY   OF   TENNYSON.  333 

style  has  not  rarer  and  finer  qualities  than 
mere  ornament.  Take  some  of  the  best 
passages,  in  which  the  so-called  "  Tenny- 
sonian  manner"  is  quite  distinct,  and  ex- 
amine them  thoroughly.  For  example,  here 
is  Arthur's  description  of  his  Round  Table, 
from  the  Idyll  of  Guinevere :  — 

But  I  was  first  of  all  the  kings  who  drew 

The  knighthood  errant  of  this  realm  and  all 

The  realms  together  under  me,  their  Head, 

In  that  fair  Order  of  my  Table  Round, 

A  glorious  company,  the  flower  of  men, 

To  serve  as  model  for  the  mighty  world, 

And  be  the  fair  beginning  of  a  time. 

I  made  them  lay  their  hands  in  mine  and  swear 

To  reverence  the  King,  as  if  he  were 

Their  conscience,  and  their  conscience  as  their  King, 

To  break  the  heathen  and  uphold  the  Christ, 

To  ride  abroad  redressing  human  wrongs, 

To  speak  no  slander,  no,  nor  listen  to  it, 

To  honour  his  own  word  as  if  his  God's, 

To  lead  sweet  lives  in  purest  chastity, 

To  love  one  maiden  only,  cleave  to  her, 

And  worship  her  by  years  of  noble  deeds, 

Until  they  won  her ;  for  indeed  I  knew 

Of  no  more  subtle  master  under  heaven 

Than  is  the  maiden  passion  for  a  maid, 

Not  only  to  keep  down  the  base  in  man, 

But  teach  high  thought,  and  amiable  words, 

And  courtliness,  and  the  desire  of  fame, 

And  love  of  truth,  and  all  that  makes  a  man. 

Now  there  is  no  mistaking  this  for  the 


f 


334  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

work  of  any  other  poet  of  our  century.  It 
belongs  to  Tennyson  as  obviously  as  if  he 
had  signed  his  name  to  every  line.  But 
what  is  it  that  gives  the  style  its  personal 
flavour,  what  constitutes  the  "  Tennysonian- 
ism,"  as  Mr.  Howells  calls  it?  Certainly  it 
is  not  any  redundancy  of  ornament,  or  opu- 
lence of  epithet.  This  is  not  elaborate,  dec- 
orative verse.  The  words  are  familiar  and 
simple ;  mpst  of  them  are  monosyllables. 
There  is  but  a  single  instance  of  alliteration. 
I  think  the  peculiar  effect,  the  sense  of  rich 
and  perfect  art,  comes  from  the  flow  of  the 
words.  It  is  the  movement  that  makes  the 
style.  And  this  movement  has  three  quali- 
ties. First,  sweetness ;  not  a  word  is  harsh, 
abrupt,  strange ;  the  melody  flows  without  a 
break.  Then,  certainty;  this  comes  from 
the  sense  of  order  and  proportion;  every 
word  fits  into  its  place.  Then,  strength; 
the  strength  which  consists  in  fulness  of 
thought  and  fewness  of  words. 

Keflect  on  the  ideal  of  a  true  aristocracy 
which  is  expressed  in  this  brief  passage.  It 
must  begin  with  reverence  and  obedience; 
for  only  they  are  fit  to  command  who  have 
learned  to  obey.  It  must  be  brave  and 
helpful,  daring  to  resist  the  heathen  invad- 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  335 

ers  and  devoted  to  the  redress  of  human 
wrongs.  It  must  be  pure  in  thought  and 
word  and  deed ;  for  the  thinking  and  speak- 
ing evil  of  others  is  one  of  the  besetting  sins 
of  an  aristocracy,  and  the  spirit  of  slander  is 
twin-sister  to  the  spirit  of  lust.  It  must  not 
banish  the  passion  of  love,  nor  brutalize  it, 
but  lift  it  up,  and  idealize  it  as  the  transfig- 
uration of  life,  and  make  it  a  true  worship 
with  a  ritual  of  noble  deeds.  And  out  of  all 
this  will  come  the  right  manhood,  in  thought, 
in  speech,  in  manners,  in  ambition,  in  sin- 
cerity, "  in  all  that  makes  a  man."  Now  the 
art  which  can  put  this  broad  and  strong  con- 
ception of  a  class  worthy  to  rule  and  to 
lead  society,  into  a  score  of  lines,  so  clear 
that  they  can  be  read  without  effort,  and  so 
melodious  that  they  fill  the  ear  with  plea- 
sure, is  exquisite.  I  think  more  than  any- 
thing else,  it  is  this  presence  of  a  pure  ideal 
shining  through  a  refined  and  balanced  verse, 
this  union  of  moral  and  metrical  harmony, 
that  marks  the  consummation  of  the  Tenny- 
sonian  manner  in  the  Idylls  of  the  King. 

I  have  no  time  to  speak  of  the  "  Patriotic 
Poems,"  except  to  say  that  they  ought  to  be 
studied  together,  because  there  is  something 
in  almost  every  one  of  them  which  is  essen- 


336  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

tial  to  the  full  understanding  of  the  poet's 
conception  of  loyalty  and  liberty  and  order, 
as  the  three  elements  of  a  perfect  state. 

The  last  division  in  the  arrangement  which 
I  have  made  is  "  Poems  of  the  Inner  Life." 
You  can  probably  conjecture  why  it  is  last. 
Partly  because  it  is  more  difficult,  and  partly 
because  it  is  higher,  in  the  sense  that  it 
gives  a  more  direct  revelation  of  the  person- 
ality of  the  poet.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
we  should  not  be  in  haste  to  enter  it.  For 
it  is  always  best  to  look  first  at  the  fact,  and 
then  at  the  explanation ;  first  at  a  man's 
objective  work,  and  then  at  the  account 
which  he  gives  of  himself  and  the  spirit  in 
which  he  has  laboured. 

The  group  of  poems  in  which  Tennyson 
deals  with  art  is  important,  not  only  for  the 
poems  themselves,  but  also  for  the  light 
which  they  throw  upon  his  artistic  principles 
and  tastes.  It  is  not  altogether  by  chance 
that  the  poets  to  whom  he  gives  greeting  are 
Milton,  Virgil,  Dante,  and  Victor  Hugo.  In 
Tlie  Poet  you  will  find  his  early  concep- 
tion of  the  power  of  poetry ;  in  Hie  Poet's 
3find,  his  thought  of  its  purity;  in  Tlie 
Poet's  Song,  his  avowal  that  its  charm 
depends  upon  faith  in  the  immortal  future. 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  337 

The  Palace  of  Art  is  an  allegory  of  the  i 
impotence  of  art  when  separated  from  human 
love.  The  Flower  tells,  in  a  symbolic  man- 
ner, his  experience  with  unreasoning  critics. 
The  Spiteful  Letter  and  Literary  Squab- 
bles are  reminiscences  of  the  critical  warfare 
which  raged  around  him  in  his  youth,  and 
made  him  sometimes  forget  his  own  princi- 
ple of  doing  his  work  "  as  quietly  and  as  well 
as  possible  without  much  heeding  the  praise 
or  the  dispraise." 

But  to  my  mind  the  most  important,  and 
in  some  respects  the  most  beautiful,  of  these 
art-poems,  is  Merlin  and  The  Gleam.  The 
wonder  is  that  none  of  the  critics  seem  to 
have  recognized  it  for  what  it  really  is, — 
the  poet's  own  description  of  his  life-work, 
and  his  clear  confession  of  faith  as  an 
idealist. 

The  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land, 
The  consecration,  and  the  Poet's  dream,"  — 

this  is  the  "  Gleam  "  that  Tennyson  has  fol- 
lowed. It  glanced  first  on  the  world  of 
fancy  with  its  melodies  and  pictures,  dancing- 
fairies,  and  falling  torrents.  Then  it  touched 
the  world  of  humanity;  and  the  stories  of 
man's  toil  and  conflict,  the  faces  of  human 
love  and  heroism,  were  revealed.     Then   it 


338  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

illuminated  the  world  of  imagination;  and 
the  great  epic  of  Arthur  was  disclosed  to  the 
poet's  vision  in  its  spiritual  meaning,  the 
crowning  of  the  blameless  king.  Then  it 
passed  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,  and  clothed  it  with  light :  — 

And  broader  and  brighter 

The  Gleam  flying  onward, 

Wed  to  the  melody, 

Sang  thro'  the  world ; 

And  slower  and  fainter, 

Old  and  weary, 

But  eager  to  follow, 

I  saw,  whenever 

In  passing  it  glanced  upon 

Hamlet  or  city, 

That  under  the  Crosses 

The  dead  man's  garden, 

The  mortal  hillock 

Would  break  into  blossom : 

And  so  to  the  land's 

Last  limit  I  came  — 

And  can  no  longer, 

But  die  rejoicing, 

For  thro'  the  Magic 

Of  Him  the  Mighty, 

Who  taught  me  in  childhood, 

There  on  the  border 

Of  boundless  Ocean, 

And  all  but  in  Heaven 

Hovers  The  Gleam. 

Not  of  the  sunlight, 
Not  of  the  moonlight, 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  339 

Not  of  the  starlight ! 
O  young  Mariner, 
Down  to  the  haven, 
Call  your  companions, 
Launch  your  vessel, 
And  crowd  your  canvas, 
And,  ere  it  vanishes 
Over  the  margin, 
After  it,  follow  it, 
Follow  The  Gleam. 

That  is  the  confession  of  a  poet's  faith  in  / 
the  Ideal.     It  is  the  cry  of  a  prophet  to  the 
younger  singers  of  a  faithless  and  irresolute 
generation. 

Among  the  poems  which  touch  more 
broadly  upon  the  common  experience  of 
mankind  in  love  and  sorrow  and  death,  you 
will  find,  first,  a  group  which  are  alike  only 
in  their  manner  of  treatment.  It  is  allegor- 
ical, mystical,  emblematic, — find  a  name  for 
it  if  you  will.  I  mean  that  these  poems 
convey  their  meaning  under  a  mask;  they 
use  a  symbolic  language,  just  as  Merlin  and 
The  Flower  do  in  the  preceding  group. 
You  must  read  The  Deserted  House,  The 
Voyage,  The  Sailor  Boy,  The  Islet,  The 
Vision  of  Sin,  The  Voice  and  the  Peak,  for 
their  secret  significance.  Then  come  three 
precious  fragments  of  philosophy  more  di- 
rectly uttered.     Willi  Wages,  and  Flower 


340  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

in  the  Crannied  Wall  go  down  to  the  very 
roots  of  human  action,  and  aspiration,  and 
thought.  Then  follows  a  group  of  poems 
more  personal,  varied  in  manner,  and  deal- 
ing in  different  moods  with  the  sorrow  of 
death.  Their  deepest  and  sweetest  note  is 
reached  in  the  two  lyrics  which  sprang  out 
of  the  poet's  grief  for  the  death  of  Arthur 
Hallam.  The  world  has  long  since  accepted 
the  first  of  these  as  the  perfect  song  of  mourn- 
ing love.  " Break,  break,  break"  once  heard, 
is  never  to  be  forgotten.  It  is  the  melody  of 
tears.  But  the  fragment  called  In  the  Val- 
ley of  Cauteretz  seems  to  me  no  less  perfect 
in  its  way.  And  surely  a  new  beauty  comes 
into  both  of  the  poems  when  we  read  them 
side  by  side.     For  the  early  cry  of  longing,  — 

Bat  0  for  the  touch  of  a  vanish'd  hand 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still  I 

finds  an  answer  in  the  later  assurance  of 
consolation,  — 

And  all  along  the  valley,  by  rock  and  cave  and  tree, 
The  voice  of  the  dead  was  a  living  voice  to  me. 

Of  the  final  group  of  poems  I  shall  sa^ 
nothing,  because  it  will  not  be  possible  to 
say  enough.  In  Memoriam  alone  would 
require  a  volume,  if  one  attempted  to  speak 
of  it  adequately.     Indeed,  no  less  than  six 


TI1E  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  341 

such  volumes  have  been  written,  four  in  Eng- 
land by  F.  W.  Robertson,  Alfred  Gatty, 
Elizabeth  R.  Chapman,  and  Joseph  Jacobs, 
two  in  America  by  Profs.  Thomas  Davidson 
and  John  F.  Genung.  If  you  need  an  anal- 
ysis or  commentary  on  the  poem  you  can 
find  it  easily.  The  one  thing  that  I  hope 
you  will  feel  in  reading  this  great  poem  and 
the  others  which  are  grouped  with  it,  is  that 
they  are  real  records  of  the  inward  conflict  4- 
between  doubt  and  faith,  and  that  in  this 
conflict  faith  has  the  victory.  And  you  may 
well  ask  yourself  whether  this  very  victory 
has  not  meant  the  winning,  and  unsealing, 
and  guarding,  of  the  fountain-head  of  Ten- 
nyson's poetic  power.  How  many  of  his 
noblest  poems,  Locksley  Hall,  The  May 
Queen,  The  Leper's  Bride,  Rizjyah,  Guine- 
vere, Enoch  Arden,  find  their  uplifting  in- 
spiration, and  reach  their  climax,  in  "  the 
evidence  of  things  not  seen,  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for."  Could  he  have  written 
anything  of  his  best  without  that  high  faith 
in  an  immortal  life  which  he  has  expressed 
in  the  rolling  lines  of  Vastness,  and  in  that 
last  supreme,  faultless  lyric  Crossing  the 
Bar  t  Can  any  man  be  a  poet  without 
faith  in  God  and  his  own  soul  ? 


842  TBE  POETRY  OF  TENtiYSON. 

An  answer  to  this  question,  clear  and 
solemn  as  a  voice  from  beyond  the  grave, 
comes  in  the  posthumous  volume  entitled 
The  Death  of  CEnone,  Akhar's  Dream,  and 
Other  Poems.  Among  the  longer  pieces 
there  are  three  short  poems,  profoundly  and 
unmistakably  personal,  which  are  like  ma- 
jestic chords  preluding  the  large  and  perfect 
music  of  immortality. 

The  first  is  Doubt  and  Prayer,  closing 
with  the  splendid  lines  :  — 

Let  blow  the  trumpet  strongly  when  I  pray, 
Till  thia  embattled  wall  of  unbelief, 
My  prison,  not  my  fortress,  fall  away ! 
Then,  if  Thou  wiliest,  let  my  day  be  brief, 
So  Thou  wilt  strike  Thy  glory  through  the  day. 

The  second  is  God  and  the  Universe,  in 
which  the  courage  of  the  soul  to  believe  in 
God  is  asserted  against  the  belittling  and 
overwhelming  immensity  of  "  the  myriad 
worlds,  His  shadow." 

The  third  is  that  swan-song  of  the  dying 
poet,  Tlie  Silent  Voices,  reechoed  and  pro- 
longed by  the  choral  music  that  flowed 
around  him  as  he  was  carried  to  his  last 
repose  in  the  Abbey  of  Westminster,  — 

Gall  me  not  so  often  back, 
Silent  voices  of  the  dead ! 


THE  STUDY  OF  TENNYSON.  343 

Call  me  rather,  silent  voices, 
Forward  to  the  starry  track 
Glimmering  up  the  heights  beyond  me, 
On,  and  always  on  1 

And  now  when  you  turn  to  look  back  on 
your  study  of  Tennyson,  what  are  you  to 
think  of  him  ?  Is  he  a  great  poet  ?  Your 
reply  to  that  will  depend  on  whether  you 
think  the  Nineteenth  Century  is  a  great  cen- 
tury. For  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
represents  the  century  better  than  any  other 
man.  The  thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  desires, 
the  conflicts,  the  aspirations  of  our  age  are 
mirrored  in  his  verse.  And  if  you  say  that 
this  alone  prevents  him  from  being  great, 
because  greatness  must  be  solitary  and  inde- 
pendent, I  answer,  No ;  for  the  great  poet 
does  not  anticipate  the  conceptions  of  his 
age,  he  only  anticipates  their  expression. 
He  says  what  is  in  the  heart  of  the  people, 
and  says  it  so  beautifully,  so  lucidly,  so 
strongly,  that  he  becomes  their  voice.  Now 
if  this  age  of  ours,  with  its  renaissance  of  art 
and  its  catholic  admiration  of  the  beautiful 
in  all  forms,  classical  and  romantic  ;  with  its 
love  of  science  and  its  joy  in  mastering  the 
secrets  of  Nature ;  with  its  deep  passion  of 
humanity  protesting  against  social  wrongs 


344  THE  POETRY  OF  TENNYSON. 

and  dreaming  of  social  regeneration ;  with 
its  introspective  spirit  searching  the  springs 
of  character  and  action ;  with  its  profound 
interest  in  the  problems  of  the  unseen,  and 
its  reaction  from  the  theology  of  the  head  to 
the  religion  of  the  heart,  —  if  this  age  of 
ours  is  a  great  age,  then  Tennyson  is  a  great 
poet,  for  he  is  the  clearest,  sweetest,  strong- 
est voice  of  the  century. 


A  VALEDICTION. 


TENNYSON 

IN  LUCEM  TRANSITUS. 
October  6,  1892. 

I  uom  the  misty  shores  of  midnight,  touched  with  splen- 
dours of  the  moon, 

To  the  singing  tides  of  heaven,  and  the  light  more  clear 
than  noon, 

Passed  a  soul  that  grew  to  music  till  it  was  with  God  in 
tone. 

Brother  of  the  greatest  poets,  true  to  nature,  true  to  art ; 
Lover  of  Immortal  Love,  nplifter  of  the  human  heart, 
Who  shall  cheer  us  with  high  music,  who  shall  sing,  if 
thou  depart  ? 

Silence  here,  —  for  love  is  silent,  gazing  on  the  lessening 

sail; 
Silence  here,  —  for  grief  is  voiceless  when  the  mighty 

poets  fail ; 
Silence  here,  —  but  far  beyond  us,  many  voices  crying, 

Hail! 


APPENDIX. 


A  CHRONOLOGY  OF  TENNYSON'S 
LIFE  AND   WORKS. 


This  Chronology  has  been  greatly  enlarged  since  the  first 
edition,  and  is  now  revised  by  reference  to  the  admirable  Memoir 
of  Tennyson,  by  his  son,  Hallam,  Lord  Tennyson.  It  contains  an 
outline  of  the  principal  events  in  the  poet's  life,  a  complete  list  of 
his  publications,  and  a  catalogue  of  the  most  important  articles  and 
books  about  him.  It  thus  presents  to  the  reader  the  materials  for 
a  careful  study  of  the  development  of  Tennyson's  poetical  art  and 
the  growth  of  his  fame. 

July,  1898. 


CHRONOLOGY. 


1809.    Alfred,  the  fourth  son  of  the  Rev.  George  Clay- 
—  ton,  and  Elizabeth  Fytche,  Tennyson,  was  born  at 
Somersby  in  Lincolnshire,  August  6. 

•#*  In  regard  to  the  accuracy  of  this  date  there  need  be 
no  further  doubt.  Lord  Tennyson  has  been  kind  enough  to 
write  me  that  '  he  thinks  that  he  was  probably  born  in  the 
early  morning  of  the  6th,  just  after  midnight.  His  mother 
used  to  keep  his  birthday  on  August  6th.'  Since  then  Mr. 
C.  J.  Caswell  has  made  a  careful  examination  of  the  date 
in  the  Baptismal  Register  at  Somersby,  and  writes  that  the 
figure  is  a  6,  which  has  been  mistaken  for  a  6  on  account  of 
the  fading  of  the  ink  on  the  left  side  of  the  loop. 

181 6.    Alfred  Tennyson  entered  Louth  Grammar  School. 

1820.  Alfred  Tennyson  left  Louth  Grammar  School  at 
Christmas.     Charles  left  at  Midsummer,  1821. 

1827.  Poems  by  Two  Brothers.  London :  Printed 
for  W.  Simpkin  and  R.  Marshall,  and  J.  &  J.  Jack- 
son, Louth.  mdcccxxvu.,  pp.  xii,  228.  Charles 
and  Alfred  Tennyson  published  this  book  anony- 
mously. 

*»*  For  the  copyright  Jackson  paid  £20 ;  but  one  half  of 
this  sum  was  to  be  taken  out  in  books  from  Jackson's  shop. 
The  volume  of  poems  was  printed  in  two  forms,  one  on  large, 
the  other  on  small  paper. 

1828.  Alfred  Tennyson  entered  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, in  October. 

Among  his  intimate  friends  were  Arthur  Henry  Hallam, 
Richard  Monckton  Milne^,  John  Mitchell  Kemble,  William 


354  APPENDIX. 

Henry  Brookfield,  Henry  Alford,  James  Spedding,  and  Rich- 
ard Chevenix  Trench. 

1829.  Timbuctoo:  A  Poem  which  obtained  the  Chan- 
cellor's Medal  at  the  Cambridge  Commencement, 
M.DCCC.xxrx.  By  A.  Tennyson,  of  Trinity  College. 
Printed  in  "  Prolusiones  Academic*  ;  mdcccxxix. 
Cantabrigise :  typis  academicis  excudit  Joannes 
Smith."    pp.  41. 

***  This  was  burlesqued  by  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 
in  The  Snob,  an  undergraduate  periodical ;  and  highly  praised 
in  The  Athenmum  (July  22,  1829),  of  which  Frederick  Deni- 
son  Maurice  and  John  Sterling  were  the  editors. 

1830.  Poems,  chiefly  Lyrical,  by  Alfred  Tennyson. 
London :  Effingham  Wilson,  Royal  Exchange, 
Cornhill,  1830.    pp.  154,  and  leaf  of  Errata. 

Tennyson  and  Hallam  visited  the  Pyrenees  to- 
gether. 

Charles  Tennyson  published  Sonnets  and  Fugitive  Pieces, 
by  Charles  Tennyson,  Trin.  Coll.  Cambridge  :  published  by 
R.  Bridges,  Market  Hill,  and  sold  by  John  Richardson,  91, 
Royal  Exchange,  London,    pp.  83. 

*#*  William  Wordsworth  wrote  from  Cambridge :  "  We 
have  also  a  respectable  show  of  blossom  in  poetry  —  two 
brothers  of  the  name  of  Tennyson  ;  one  in  particular  not  a 
little  promising." 

1831.  Contributed  "Anacreontics,"  "No  More,"  and 
"A  Fragment"  to  The  Gem:  A  Literary  Annual. 
London :  W.  Marshall ;  also  a  Sonnet,  "  Check 
every  outflash,  every  ruder  sally,"  to  The  English- 
man's Magazine,  August. 

Tennyson's  father  died  at  Someraby,  March  16, 
aged  52. 

*#*  The  Poems,  chiefly  Lyrical,  were  reviewed  with  fa- 
vour in  The  Westminster  Review,  January  ;  in  The  Tattler, 
February  24  —  March  3,  by  Leigh  Hunt ;  and  in  The  Eng- 
lishman's Magazine,  August,  by  A.  H.  Hallam. 

1832.  Poems  by  Alfred  Tennyson.  London :  Edward 
Moxon,  64,  New  Bond  Street.  MDCCCXXXHI.  pp. 
163.    (This  is  properly  called  the  edition  of  1833.) 


CHRONOLOGY.  855 

Contributed  a  Sonnet,  "  Me  ray  own  fate  to  last- 
ing sorrow  doometh,"  to  Friendship's  Offering: 
A  Literary  Album.  London  :  Smith,  Elder  &  Co. ; 
and  a  Sonnet,  "  There  are  three  things  which  fill 
my  heart  with  sighs,"  to  The  Yorkshire  Literary 
Annual.    London  :  Longmans  &  Co. 

%•  Professor  John  Wilson  ("  Christopher  North ")  at- 
tacked Tennyson  as  "the  pet  of  a  Cockney  coterie,"  in 
Blackwood's  Magazine  for  May. 

The  Athenaum,  for  December  1st,  had  a  notice  of  the  1833 
poems. 

1833.  Reprinted  the  Sonnet,  "Check  every  outflash, 
every  ruder  sally,"  in  Friendship's  Offering. 

Printed  The  Lover's  Tale.  By  Alfred  Tenny- 
son. London:  Edward  Moxon,  64,  New  Bond 
Street,  mdcccxxxiii.  pp.  60.  This  was  immedi- 
ately suppressed  and  withdrawn  from  the  press, 
because  the  author  felt  "  the  imperfection  of  the 
poem." 

%*  A  very  severe  criticism  of  the  1833  poems  appeared  in 
The  Quarterly  Review  for  July,  and  was  attributed  to  the 
editor,  John  Gibson  Lockhar^. 

A  review  of  Poems,  chiefly  Lyrical,  by  W.  J.  Fox,  in  The 
Monthly  Repository  for  January. 

Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  said  in  his  "  Table  Talk  :  "  "I 
have  not  read  through  all  Mr.  Tennyson's  poems,  which  have 
been  sent  to  me,  but  I  think  there  are  some  things  of  a  good 
deal  of  beauty  in  what  I  have  seen.  The  misfortune  is,  that 
he  has  begun  to  write  verses  without  very  well  understand- 
ing what  metre  is." 

On  September  15,  Arthur  Henry  Hallam  died 
suddenly  at  Vienna. 

J834-  *•*  Remains  in  Verse  and  Prose  of  Arthur  Henry  Hallam. 
Printed  by  W.  Nicol,  51  Pall  Mall,   mdcccxxxtv.   pp.  xl,  363. 

I°35-  *•*  John  Stuart  Mill  reviewed  Tennyson's  poems  with 
great  fairness  and  appreciation  in  The  Westminster  Review 
for  July. 


356  APPENDIX. 

1837.  Contributed  Stanzas,  "  0,  that 't  were  possible  " 
(the  germ  of  "  Maud"),  to  The  Tribute:  edited  by 
Lord  Northampton.  London :  John  Murray.  "St. 
Agnes  "  to  The  Keepsake :  edited  by  Lady  Emme- 
line  Stuart  Wortley.     London :  Longmans  &  Co. 

The  Tennyson  family  left  Somersby,  and  moved 
to  High  Beach  in  Eppiug  Forest. 

**•  The  Edinburgh  Review  for  October  noticed  Tennyson 
for  the  first  time,  and  said  that  his  stanzas  in  The  Tribute 
"  showed  the  hand  of  a  true  poet." 

Walter  Savage  Laiidor  wrote  to  a  friend  on  December  9  : 
"  Yesterday  a  Mr.  Moreton,  a  young  man  of  rare  judgment, 
read  to  me  a  manuscript  by  Mr.  Tennyson  very  different  in 
style  from  his  printed  poems.  The  subject  is  the  death  of 
Arthur.  It  is  more  Homeric  than  any  poem  of  our  time, 
and  rivals  some  of  the  noblest  parts  of  the  Odyssea." 

1841.  The  Tennyson  family  moved  to  Boxley,  near 
Maidstone.  Tennyson  spent  much  time  in  Lou- 
don with  Fitzgerald,  Sterling,  Milnes,  Thackeray, 
Landor,  Carlyle,  etc. 

1842.  Morte  d'Arthub,  Dora,  and  Other  Idyls. 
By  Alfred  Tennyson.  London:  Edward  Moxon, 
Dover  Street,    mdcccxlii.    pp.  67. 

(A  trial  book,  printed  but  never  published,  con- 
taining eight  blank  verse  poems,  subsequently  in- 
cluded in  the  following  publication.) 

Poems  by  Alfred  Tennyson.  In  Two  Volumes. 
London:  Edward  Moxon,  Dover  Street. 
mdcccxlii.     pp.  vii,  233;  vii,  231. 

*#*  These  volumes  were  reviewed  by  Richard  Monckton 
Milnes  (Lord  Houghton)  in  The  Westminster  Review,  Octo- 
ber; by  John  Sterling  in  The  Quarterly  Review:  and 
anonymously  in  The  Examiner,  May  28 ;  Tail's  Edinburgh 
Magazine,  August;  The  London  University  Magazine,  De- 
cember; and  The  Christian  Examiner,  Boston,  U.  S.  A., 
November.  All  of  the  criticisms  were  respectful,  and  most 
of  thorn  highly  laudatory. 


CHRONOLOGY.  357 

Within  a  year  Carlyle,  Dickens,  Miss  Mitford,  Margaret 
Fuller,  Emerson,  and  Poe  were  speaking  ot  Tennyson  with 
enthusiasm. 

Five  hundred  copies  had  been  sold  by  September  8th. 

1843.  Second  edition  of  Poems  in  Two  Volumes. 

•»*  Several  malicious  parodies  of  Tennyson  appeared  in  the 
"  Bon  Gaultier  Ballads,"  in  TaxCs  and  Eraser's  magazines. 

Tennyson's  Poems  reviewed  by  James  Spedding  in  Edin- 
burgh Review,  April. 

1844.  About  this  time  Tennyson  passed  through  serious 
money  troubles,  losing  nearly  all  his  small  prop- 
erty. His  health  failed,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
spend  some  time  at  a  water-cure  establishment  to 
obtain  relief  from  severe  hypochondria. 

*,»  Tennyson's  portrait  and  a  sketch  of  his  character  in 
Richard  Hengist  Home's  A  New  Spirit  of  the  Age.  Lon- 
don :  Smith,  Elder  &  Co. 

%*  In  The  Democratic  Review,  New  York,  January,  Mrs. 
Kemble  reviewed  Tennyson's  poems,  and  Edgar  Allan  Poe 
wrote  in  the  December  number,  "  I  am  not  sure  that  Tenny- 
son is  not  the  greatest  of  poets." 

1845.  Received  a  pension  of  £200,  through  Sir  Robert 
Peel;  and  published  a  third  edition  of  Poems  in 
Two  Volumes. 

•«*  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton  attacked  Tennyson  in  The 
New  Timon:  a  Romance  of  London.    Henry  Colburn. 

Wordsworth  wrote  in  a  letter  to  Professor  Henry  Reed  of 
Philadelphia :  "  Tennyson  is  decidedly  the  first  of  our  living 
poets,  and  I  hope  will  live  to  give  the  world  still  better 
things. " 

Living  Poets  ;  and  their  services  to  the  causes  of  Political 
Freedom  and  Human  Progress.  By  W.  J.  Fox.  Published 
from  the  Reporter's  notes.  London :  1845.  Notice  of  Ten- 
nyson in  Vol.  i.  pp.  248-265. 

1846.  Fourth  edition  of  the  Poems  (and  last  in  two  vol- 
umes). Contributed  "The  New  Timon  and  the 
Poets"  (a  bitter  reply  to  Bulwer)  to  Punch,  Feb- 
ruary 28 ;  and  "  Afterthought "  (a  repentance  for 
that  reply)  to  Punch,  March  7. 


358  APPENDIX. 

Tennyson  visited  Switzerland  with  Edward 
Moxon,  his  publisher. 

The  Tennyson  family  were  living  at  Cheltenham, 
%*  James  Russell  Lowell  on  Keats  and  Tennyson  in  Con- 
versations on  the  Poets.    Cambridge  (U.  S.  A.),  1846. 
1847.    The  Princess;  A  Medley.    By  Alfred  Tenny- 
son.     London:    Edward   Moxon,  Dover   Street. 
mdcccxlvii.    pp.  164. 

V*  A  sketch  of  Tennyson  in  William  Howitt's  Homes  and 
Haunts  of  the  Most  Eminent  British  Poets. 
1348.     Second  edition  of  the  Princess ;  with  a  dedication 
to  Henry  Lushington.    Fifth  edition  of  the  Poems, 
in  one  volume. 

1849.  Contributed  lines, "  To ,  You  might  have  won 

the  poet's  fame,"  to  The  Examiner,  March  24. 

V*  A  review  of  the  Princess,  by  Professor  James  Hadley 
of  Tale  College,  in  The  New  Englander,  May :  another  in  The 
Edinburgh  Review,  October,  by  Aubrey  de  Vere. 

An  extended  criticism  of  the  Fifth  edition  of  Tennyson's 
Poems  in  The  Westminster  Review,  July.. 

1850.  In  Memobiam.   London  :  Edward  Moxon,  Dover 
Street,    mdcccl.    pp.  vii,  210. 

The  second  and  third  editions  (with  no  change 
hut  the  correction  of  two  typographical  errors) 
appeared  in  the  same  year. 

Third  edition  of  the  Princess,  very  much  altered, 
and  with  the  Songs  added. 

Sixth  edition  of  the  Poems. 

Contributed  lines,  "  Here  often,  when  a  child,  I 
lay  reclin'd,"  to  The  Manchester.AthencBum  Album. 

On  June  13,  Alfred  Tennyson  and  Emily  Sell- 
wood  were  married  at  Shiplake  Church,  Oxford- 
shire. 

On  November  19,  Alfred  Tennyson  was  ap- 
pointed to  succeed^  William  Wordsworth  (died 
April  23)  as  Poet  Laureate. 


CHRONOLOGY.  359 

%*  Charles  Kingsley  published  an  essay  on  Tennyson  in 
Prater's  Magazine,  September. 

In  Memoriam  was  reviewed  in  The  Westminster  Review, 
October. 

1851.  Contributed  Stanzas,  "  What  time  I  wasted  youth- 
ful hours,"  and  "  Come  not  when  I  am  dead,"  to 
The  Keepsake:  edited  by  Miss  Power.  London: 
David  Bogue. 

Sonnet  to  W.  C.  Macready,  read  at  the  valedic- 
tory dinner  to  the  actor,  and  printed  in  The  House- 
hold Narrative  of  Current  Events,  February-March. 
Seventh  edition  of  the  Poems,  containing  three 
new  pieces,  and  the  dedication  "  To  the  Queen." 

Fourth  edition  of  the  Princess,  with  additions. 
Fourth  edition  of  In  Memoriam,  adding  section 
lix,  "  O  sorrow,  wilt  thou  live  with  me  ?  "  Pre- 
sented, as  Poet  Laureate,  to  the  Queen,  at  Buck- 
ingham Palace,  March  6. 

Lived  at  Twickenham.  Travelled  in  France  and 
Italy. 

1852.  Ode  on  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Wel. 
lington.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate. 
London:  Edward  Moxon.  1852.  pp.  16.  (No- 
vemher.) 

Contributed  "  Britons,  guard  your  own,"  to  The 
Examiner,  January  31 ;  "The  Third  of  February," 
and  "  Hands  all  roond,"  to  the  same  paper,  Febru- 
ary 7.  These  poems  were  called  forth  by  the  gen- 
eral excitement  consequent  on  the  coup  d'e'tat  of 
Louis  Napoleon. 

Tennyson's    oldest   son,   Hallam,   was    born  at 
Twickenham,  August  11. 
X853.    Eighth   edition  of   the  Poems,   with  additions. 
Fifth  edition  of  the  Princess,  with  additions. 

Rented  the  estate  of  Farringford  in  the  parish 
of  Freshwater,  Isle  of  Wight. 


360  APPENDIX. 

Second  edition  of  the  Ode  on  the  Death  of  Wel- 
lington, containing  additions. 

1854.  The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade.  First 
printed  in  The  Examiner,  December  9,  afterwards 
on  a  quarto  sheet  for  distribution  among  the 
soldiers  before  Sebastopol.     (August,  1855.) 

Tennyson's  second  son,  Lionel,  was  born  at  Far- 
ringford,  March  16. 

***  Days  and  Hours.  By  Frederick  Tennyson.  London : 
John  W.  Parker  &  Son,  West  Strand.     1854.     pp.  viii,  346. 

P.  D.  Maurice  dedicated  his  Theological  Essays  to 
Tennyson. 

E.  K.  Kane,  the  Arctic  explorer,  named  a  cliff  in  Green- 
land, "Tennyson's  Monument." 

1855.  Maud,  and  Other  Poems.  By  Alfred  Tenny- 
son, D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  London :  Edward 
Moxon.     1855.     pp.  154. 

The  University  of  Oxford  had  conferred  the  de- 
gree of  D.  C.  L.  upon  him  in  May. 

***  Maud  was  reviewed  in  Blackwood's  Magazine,  Sep- 
tember; The  Edinburgh  Review,  October;  The  National 
Review,  October  ;  and  in  The  North  American  Revitw,  Octo- 
ber, by  Rev.  E.  E.  Hale. 

Oeorge  Brimley's  essay  on  Tennyson  was  published  in 
Cambridge  Essays. 

1856.  Second  edition  of  Maud,  with  many  additions, 
pp.  164. 

Purchased  the  estate  of  Farringford. 
Dr.  R.  J,  Mann  published  Tennyson's  '  Maud  '  Vindicated, 
an  Explanatory  Essay.    London  :  Jarrold  &  Sons. 

1857.  Enid  and  Nimde  :  the  Trde  and  the  False. 
By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate. 
London:  Edward  Moxon,  Dover  Street.  1857. 
pp.  139. 

(A  trial  book,  containing  two  Arthurian  idylls, 
afterwards  called  Enid  and  Vivien.) 


CHRONOLOGY.  861 

An  edition  of  the  Poems,  illustrated  by  Millais, 
Holman  Hunt,  Rossetti,  and  others,  published  by 
Moxon,  and  afterwards  transferred  to  Routledge. 

*„*  Bayard  Taylor  visited  Tennyson  at  Farringford,  and 
walked  with  him  along  the  cliffs.  "  I  was  struck  with  tht 
variety  of  his  knowledge.  Not  a  little  flower  on  the  downs 
escaped  his  notice,  and  the  geology  of  the  coast,  both  terres- 
trial and  submarine,  was  perfectly  familiar  to  him.  I  thought 
of  a  remark  I  once  heard  from  a  distinguished  English  author 
(Thackeray),  that  Tennyson  was  the  wisest  man  he  knew." 

1858.  Added  two  stanzas  to  the  National  Anthem,  on 
the  marriage  of  the  Princess  Royal.  Printed  in 
The  Times,  January  26. 

*#*  Rev.  F.  W.  Robertson  gave  an  estimate  of  Tennyson 
In  his  Lectures  and  Addresses.  London  :  Smith,  Elder  &  Co. 
pp.  124-141. 

1859.  The  Trce  and  the  False  :  Four  Idylls  of  the 
~~  King.    By  Alfred  Tennyson,  P.  L.,  D.  C.  L.    Lon- 
don: Edward  Moxon  &  Co  ,  Dover  Street.     1859. 
pp.  261. 

(A  trial  book,  with  practically  the  same  contents 
as  the  following,  except  that  the  name  Nimue 
stands  in  place  of  Vivien.) 

Idylls  of  the  King.  By  Alfred  Tennyson, 
D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  London :  Edward  Moxon 
&  Co.,  Dover  Street.     1859.     pp.  261. 

Ten  thousand  copies  were  sold  in  the  first  week. 

Contributed  verses  entitled  "The  Grandmother's 
Apology"  to  Once  a  Week,  July  16.  Visited  Por- 
tugal with  Francis  Turner  Palgrave. 

The  verses  entitled  "  The  War,"  signed  "  T," 
and  printed  in  The  London  Times,  May  9,  were  ac- 
knowledged by  Lord  Tennyson  in  1891. 

***  Peter  Bayne  published  Tennyson  and  his  Teachert. 
James  Hogg  &  Sons :  Edinburgh  and  London. 

The  Idylls  of  the  King  were  reviewed  in  Blackwood's 


362  APPENDIX. 

Magazine,  November,  and  Edinburgh  Review,  July,  by  Cor- 
entry  Patmore. 

Rev.  Alfred  Gatty  published  The  Poetical  Character  :  illus- 
trated from  the  Work*  of  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  Poet 
Laureate.    London :  Bell  &  Daldy.     pp.  '29. 

Tennyson's  Poems  reviewed  in  The  London  Quarterly,  Octo- 
ber, and  in  The  Westminster  Review,  by  John  Nichol. 

Henry  Wads  worth  Longfellow  wrote  in  his  diary  :  "  Fin- 
ished the  four  Idylls.  The  first  and  third  could  have  come 
only  from  a  great  poet.  The  second  and  fourth  do  not  seem 
to  me  so  good."  July  20, 1859.  (The  first  and  third  were 
Enid  and  Elaine ;  the  second  and  fourth  were  Vivien  and 
Quinevere.) 

i860.  Contributed  "  Sea  Dreams :  An  Idyll,"  to  Mac- 
millan's  Magazine,  January ;  and  "  Tithonus  "  to 
The  Cornhill  Magazine,  February. 

Tennyson  made  a  tour  to  Cornwall  and  the 
Scilly  Isles  with  Woolner,  Palgrave,  Holman  Hunt, 
and  Val  Prinsep,  —  an  Arthurian  Pilgrimage. 

*#*  Poems  and  Essays  by  the  late  William  Caldwell  Ros- 
coe.    London  :  Chapman  &  Hall.    pp.  1-37  on  Tennyson. 

"  Poetical  Works  of  Alfred  Tennyson  "  reviewed  by  C.  C. 
Everett  in  The  North  American  Review,  January. 

1861.  The  Sailor  Boy.  London :  Emily  Faithfull  & 
Co.  Victoria  Press,  1861.  (25  copies  for  the 
author's  use.) 

This  poem  was  contributed  to  The  Victoria 
Pvegia  :  a  volume  of  original  contributions  in 
Poetry  and  Prose.  Edited  by  Adelaide  A.  Proc- 
ter.   London,  1861. 

Revisited  the  Pyrenees,  where  he  had  travelled 
with  Arthur  Hallam. 

Wrote  "  Helen's  Tower,"  privately  printed  by 
Lord  Dufferin. 

1862.  A  new  edition  of  the  Idylls,  with  a  dedication  to 
the  memory  of  Prince  Albert. 

Wrote  an  "  Ode :  May  the  First,  1862 ; "  sung  at 


CHRONOLOGY.  363 

the  opening  of  the  International  Exhibition ;  and 
printed  in  Fraser's  Magazine,  June. 

A  Pirated  Edition  of  the  Poems  of  1830  and 

1833  was  printed  in  this  year.     It  was  suppressed 

by  law,  and  has  no  bibliographical  value  whatever. 

*»*  An  Index  to  In  Memoriam.    London  :  Edward  Moxon 

&  Co.    pp.  40. 

An  Analysis  of  In  Memoriam  by  the  late  Rev.  Frederick 
W.  Robertson  of  Brighton.     London  >  Smith,  Elder  &  Co. 

Remains  in  Verse  and  Prose  of  Arthur  Henry  Hallam. 
With  a  Preface  and  Memoir.  London  :  John  Murray,  Albe- 
marle Street.    1862.     pp.  Ix,  305. 

X863.  Published  on  the  arrival  of  the  Princess  Alexan- 
dra, March  7,  A  Wblcomb.  London:  Edward 
Moxon  &  Co.    pp.  4. 

A  Welcome  to  her  Royal  Highness,  the 
Princess  op  Wales.  From  the  Poet  Laureate. 
Owen  Jones,  Illuminator.  Day  &  Sons,  Litho- 
graphers to  the  Queen.     1863. 

Contributed  "  Attempts   at  Classic   Metres   in 
Quantity  "  to  The  Cornhill  Magazine,  December. 
1864.    Enoch    Arden,    etc.      By   Alfred    Tennyson, 
D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.    London :  Edward  Moxon 
&  Co.,  Dover  Street.     1864.    pp.178. 

The  title  of  this  volume  in  the  proof  sheets  was 
Idylls  of  the  Hearth.  A  few  copies  were 
printed  with  this  title-page. 

Contributed  an  "  Epitaph  on  the  late  Duchess  of 
Kent "  to  The  Court  Journal,  March  19. 

•**  "Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning;  or,  Pure, 
Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art,"  by  Walter  Bagehot  in  The 
National  Review,  November. 

Enoch  Arden  was  reviewed  in  Blackwood's  Magazine, 
November ;  in  the  Notivelle  Revue  de  Paris,  September,  by 
A.  Vermore ;  in  The  Westminster  Review,  October ;  in  The 
North  British  Review,  August;  in  The  North  American 
Review,  October,  by  James  Russell  Lowell ;  in  Harper's 
Magazine,  October,  by  George  William  Curtis. 


364  APPENDIX. 

Hippolyte  Adolphe  Taine  compared  Tennyson  unfavour- 
ably with  De  Musset,  in  his  Histoire  de  la  Litterature 
Anglaise.    Paris :  1864. 

Garibaldi  visited  Tennyson  at  Farringford. 

Sonnet*.  By  the  Eev.  Charles  Turner,  Vicar  of  Orasby, 
Lincoln.  London  and  Cambridge :  Macmillan  &  Co.  pp.  viii, 
102. 

This  was  the  brother  of  Tennyson  who  had  joined  with  him 
in  writing  the  Poems  by  Two  Brothers.  He  had  dropped  the 
name  of  Tennyson  in  1835  in  order  to  assume  an  inheritance. 

1865.  A  Selection  from  the  Works  of  Alfred 
Tennyson.  London :  Edward  Moxon  &  Co., 
Dover  Street.  This  volume  contains  six  new 
poems:  "The  Captain,"  "On  a  Mourner,"  "  Home 
they  brought  him  slain  with  spears,"  and  three 
"  Sonnets  to  a  Coquette."    pp.  256. 

Tennyson  was  elected  a  member  or  "  The  Club  " 
(Dr.  Samuel  Johnson's),  and  made  a  tour  in  franco 
and  Germany. 

Tennyson's  mother  died  February  21,  aged  84. 

*#*  J.  Leicester  Warren  contributed  "  The  Bibliography  of 
Tennyson  "  to  The  Fortnightly  Review,  October  L 

Three  Great  Teachers  i  Carlyle,  Tennyson,  and  Buskin. 
By  Alexander  H.  Japp,  LL.  D.    London  :  Smith,  Elder  &  Co. 

1866.  %*  Enoch  Arden  (continued),  by  C.  H.  P.  Not  by  the 
"Laurkate,"  but  a  timid  hand  that  grasped  the  Poet's 
golden  lyre,  "  and  back  recoil'd  —  e'en  at  the  sound  herself 
had  made."  1866.  [No  printer's  or  publisher's  name.  A 
pamphlet  of  12  pp.  Blank  verse.  Exact  transcript  of  title- 
page  from  "  Enoch  "  to  "  1866."] 

Tennys oniana  :  Notes  Bibliographical  and  Critical  on  Early 
Poems  o/ Alfred  <k  C.  Tennyson,  etc.,  etc.  Basil  Montague 
Pickering :  196,  Piccadilly,  London,  W.  :  mdccclxvi.  pp.  170. 
(Pages  30-41  were  omitted  while  the  work  was  passing  through 
the  press.  In  this  edition,  therefore,  the  verso  of  page  29  is 
page  42.)  The  author's  name  is  not  on  the  title-page;  but 
the  book  is  known  to  be  the  work  of  Richard  Heme  Shep- 
herd. 

Enoch  Arden  reviewed  in  The  London  Quarterly  Review 
for  January,  1866. 


CHRONOLOGY.  365 

Mr.  George  Grove  printed  a  commentary  on  "  Tears,  idle 
Tears,"  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  for  November ;  and  one 
"On  a  Song  in  the  Princess,"  in  The  Shilling  Magazine  for 
February. 

1867.  The  Window  :  or  the  Loves  of  the  "Wrens. 
Printed  at  the  private  press  of  Sir  Ivor  Bertie 
Guest  of  Canford  Mauor,  now  Lord  Wimborne. 

These  songs  were  set  to  music  by  Mr.  Arthur 
Sullivan,  and  so  published  in  December,  1870. 

The  Victim.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L., 
Poet  Laureate.  Printed  at  the  same  place  and  in 
the  same  manner. 

Tennyson  purchased  the  Greenhill  estate  on  the 
top  of  Blackdown  on  the  northern  border  of  Sussex, 
three  miles  from  the  village  of  Haslemere,  in  Sur- 
rey. In  1868  he  began  the  erection  of  a  house 
from  designs  by  Mr.  J.  T.  Knowles.  The  place 
was  called  Aldworth,  and  was  the  poet's  summer 
home. 

*#*  John  K.  Ingram,  LL.  D.,  reviewed  Tennyson's  Works 
in  Afternoon  Lectures  on  Literature  and  Art.  Fourth  Series. 
London :  Bell  &  Daldy.     pp.  47-94. 

"Studies  in  Tennyson,"  by  W.  S.,  in  Belgravia. 

1868.  Contributed  "  The  Victim  "  to  Good  Words,  Janu- 
ary ;  "  On  a  Spiteful  Letter,"  to  Once  a  Week, 
January ;  "  Wages"  to  Macmillan's  Magazine,  Feb- 
ruary; "  1865-1866  "  to  Good  Words,  March;  and 
"  Lucretius  "  to  Macmillan's  Magazine,  May. 

"Lucretius"  was  also  printed  in  an  American 
magazine  called  Every  Saturday,  with  some  lines 
not  contained  in  the  English  version.  It  appeared 
also  as  a  small  book  with  the  following  title-page : 

Lucretius.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate. 
Cambridge,  Mass.  Printed  for  private  circulation. 
1868.     pp.  27. 

\*  Professor  R.  C.  Jebb  praised  the  historical  accuracy  of 
"Lucretius  "  in  Macmillan,s  Magazine,  June. 


366  APPENDIX. 

S.  Cheethani  printed  a  scholarly  review  of  the  Arthurian 
Legends  in  The  Contemporary,  April. 

A  Study  of  the  Works  of  Alfred  Tennyson.  By  Edward 
Campbell  Tainsh.  London :  Chapman  &  Hall.  Second  edi- 
tion, 1869.    pp.  268. 

Jerrold,  Tennyson,  and  Maeaulay.  By  Jamea  Hutchison 
Stirling,  LL.  D.  Edinburgh :  Edmunston  &  Douglas. 
pp.  243. 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow  visited  Farringf  ord. 

Small  Tableaux.  By  the  Rev.  Charles  Turner,  Vicar  of 
Grasby,  Lincoln.    London :  Macmillan  &  Co.    pp.  viii,  114. 

i86g.  The  Holt  Grail  and  Other  Poems.  By  Al- 
fred Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  Strahan 
&  Co.,  Publishers,  56,  Ludgate  Hill,  London.  1870. 
pp.  222.  Of  this  volume  40,000  copies  were  ordered 
in  advance.  It  was  published  late  in  the  year,  and 
made  two  announcements:  The  collection  of  the 
eight  Idylls  of  the  Kino  in  proper  order  "  to- 
day published ; "  and  the  Pocket  Volume  Edi- 
tion of  Mr.  Tennyson's  Works,  in  ten  volumes, 
price,  £2  5s.,  "  now  ready." 

Tennyson  was  one  of  the  founders  of  "  The  Meta- 
physical Society  "  in  this  year. 

\*  D.  Barron  Brightwell  published  his  Concordance  to  the 
Entire  Works  of  Alfred  Tennyson.  London:  E.  Moxon 
&  Co. 

An  article  on  "  The  Poetry  of  the  Period,"  in  Temple  Bar, 
for  May,  declared  that  "  Mr.  Tennyson  has  no  sound  preten- 
sions to  be  called  a  great  poet."  This  review  was  probably 
by  Mr.  Alfred  Austin,  his  successor  in  the  Poet  Laureatesbip. 

Mr.  Tennyson  and  Mr.  Browning.  By  Edward  Dowden, 
in  Afternoon  Lectures  in  Literature  and  Arts,  published  in 
1869,  reprinted  in  Studies  in  Literature.  London :  Kegan 
Paul,  Trench  &  Co.    Fifth  Edition.    1889. 

1870.  The  Window  :  or,  The  Songs  of  the  Wrens. 
Words  written  for  music  by  Alfred  Tennyson. 
The  music  by  Arthur  Sullivan.  London  :  Strahan 
&  Co.     1871.     (Published  in  December,  1870.) 


CHRONOLOGY.  367 

V  Henry  Alford  printed  a  review  of  The  Idylls  of  the 
King  in  The  Contemporary,  January. 

"  The  Epic  of  Arthur  "  in  The  Edinburgh  Review,  April, 
1870. 

"  Alfred  Tennyson,"  critical  article  by  E.  Camerinl,  in  the 
Nuova  Antologia.    Florence,  February. 

Mr.  J.  Hain  Friswell  had  a  chapter  on  Alfred  Tennyson  in 
Modern  Men  of  Letters  Honestly  Criticized.  London  I  H od- 
der &  Stoughtou.     1870.     pp.  145-146. 

A  letter  on  the  game  subject  was  printed  by  J.  T.  Knowles 
In  The  Spectator. 

1871.  The  Last  Tournament.  By  Alfred  Tennyson, 
D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  Strahan  &  Co.  56,  Lud- 
gate  Hill,  London.  1871.  [All  rights  reserved.] 
This  was  a  trial  book,  not  published. 

Contributed   "  The  Last  Tournament "  to  The 
Contemporary,  December. 

V*  R«v-  H-  B-  Haweis  had  an  article  on  ••  The  Songs  of 
the  Wrens  "  in  The  Saint  Paul's  Magazine,  February. 

187a.  Gareth  and  Lynette,  etc.  By  Alfred  Tenny- 
son,  D.C.L.,  Poet  Laureate.  Strahan  &  Co.  56, 
Ludgate  Hill,  London.     1852.    pp.  136. 

The  Library  Edition  of  Tennyson's  Works,  in 
seven  volumes,  was  published  by  Strahan  &  Co. 
18Y2-1873.  It  contained  important  additions,  viz., 
"  Alexander,"  "  The  Bridesmaid,"  "  The  Third  of 
February,  1852,"  "Literary  Squabbles,"  "On  a 
Spiteful  Letter,"  and  "  Epilogue  "  to  the  Idylls  of 
the  King.  The  Idylls  were  now  printed  in  their 
sequence  of  time,  ten  in  number. 

Contributed  "  England  and  America  in  1782"  to 
The  New  York  Ledger  ;  for  this  poem  one  thousand 
pounds  were  paid. 

V*  Richard  HoltHutton  contributed  a  review  of  Tennyson 
to  Maemillan''s  Magazine,  December. 

Robert  Buchanan  printed  an  article  entitled  "  Tennyson's 
Charm  "  in  St.  PauVs  Magazine,  March. 


368  APPENDIX. 

1873.  Tennyson  was  offered  a  baronetcy,  but  declined. 
%*  J.  Hutchinson  printed  an  article  on  "  Tennyson  as  a 

Botanist  "  in  St.  Paul's  Magazine,  October. 

Tennyson.  By  Walter  Irving.  Edinburgh  :  Haclachlan 
&  Stewart,    pp.  28. 

A  burlesque  of  the  Idylls  of  the  King  was  printed  in  Black- 
wood's Magazine,  January,  under  the  title  of  "  Sir  Tray  :  an 
Arthurian  Idyll." 

The  Rev.  Drummond  Rawnsley  published  an  article  on 
"  Lincolnshire  Scenery  and  Character  as  illustrated  by  Mr. 
Tennyson  "  in  Macmillan's  Magazine,  December,  1873. 

Master-SpirUs.  By  Robert  Buchanan.  London:  Henry 
S.  King  &  Co.  1873.  pp.  349.  Essay  on  "  Tennyson,  Heine, 
and  De  Musset."    pp.  54-88. 

1874.  A  Welcome  to  Mabie  Alexandbovna,  Duch- 
ess of  Edinbubgh.  This  was  first  printed  in  The 
Times,  and  afterwards  issued  on  a  separate  sheet. 

The  Cabinet  Edition  of  Tennyson's  Works,  in 
12  volumes,  published  by  H.  S.  King  &  Co.,  1874, 
contained  important  additions. 

Tennyson  was  offered  a  baronetcy,  but  decb'ned. 
The  second  offer  came  through  Disraeli. 

1875.  Qceen  Mast.  A  Drama.  By  Alfred  Tenny- 
son. London:  Henry  S.  King  &  Co.  1875.  pp. 
viii,  278. 

Prefixed  a  Sonnet  to  Lord  Lyttelton's  Memoir  of 
William  Henry  Brookfield. 

The  author's  Edition  of  Tennyson's  Works  was 
published  by  Henry  S.  King  &  Co.,  in  six  volumes, 
crown  8vo,  1875-1877.  Important  changes  were 
made  in  this  edition,  and  Maud  was  entitled  "  a 
monodrama." 

%•  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  published  a  review  of 
Tennyson  in  Victorian  Poets.  Boston :  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.  This  was  supplemented  by  an  additional  chapter  in 
the  edition  of  1887. 

The  Religion  of  our  Literature.  By  George  McCrie.  Lon* 
don :  Hodder  &  Stoughton.    pp.  110-180. 


CHRONOLOGY.  3G9 

"  Virgil  and  Tennyson,"  in  Blackwood's  Magazine,  Novem- 
ber. By  "a  Lincolnshire  Rector"  [Rev.  DrumnionU 
Rawnsley]. 

In  this  year  a  pirated  edition  of  The  Lover's  Tale  was 
brought  out  by  R.  H.  Shepherd,  and  suppressed  by  law, 
Tennyson  paying  the  costs  because  he  had  heard  tliat 
Shepherd  was  poor. 

1876.  Harold.  A  Drama.  By  Alfred  Tennyson. 
London:  Henry  S.  King  &  Co.    1877.    pp.  viii,  161. 

*»*  Queen  Mary  was  produced  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre  by 
Miss  Batemen  and  Henry  Irving,  in  April. 

Harold  was  reviewed  in  The  London  Times,  October  18, 
by  Professor  Jebb. 

Robert  Browning  dedicated  the  two  volumes  of  his 
"  Selections  "  "  to  Alfred  Tennyson  :  in  Poetry  illustrious 
and  consummate  :    in  Friendship  noble  and  sincere. " 

1877.  Contributed  a  prefatory  Sonnet  to  the  first  num- 
ber of  The  Nineteeenth  Century,  March  ;  also  "  Mon- 
tenegro," a  Sonnet,  to  the  May  number ;  a  "  Son- 
net to  Victor  Hugo  "  to  The  Nineteenth  Century, 
June ;  "  Achilles  over  the  Trench  "  to  The  Nine- 
teenth Century,  August. 

Lines  on  Sir  John  Franklin  in  Westminster 
Abbey. 

*»*  Bayard  Taylor  printed  a  criticism  of  Tennyson  in  The 
International  Review,  New  York,  May. 

Longfellow's  Sonnet  entitled  Wapentake  published  in  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  December. 

1878.  Contributed  "  Sir  Richard  Greuville :  A  Ballad  of 
the  Fleet,"  to  The  Nineteenth  Century,  March. 

Made  a  tour  in  Ireland. 

*»*  Studies  in  the  Idylls.  By  Henry  Elsdale.  London : 
H.  S.  King  &  Co.     1678.     pp.  vii,  197. 

1879.  The  Lover's  Tale.  By  Alfred  Tenm  son.  Lon- 
don :  C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co.,  1,  Paternoster  Square. 
1879.  pp.  95.  (Includes  The  Golden  Supper,  first 
published  iu  The  Holy  Grail  volume  in  186'J). 


870  APPENDIX. 

This  was  a  revision  of  the  poem  suppressed  in 
1833,  and  the  publication  was  made  necessary  by 
the  fact  that  it  had  been  pirated. 

Tennyson's  play  of  The  Falcon  was  produced 
at  the  St.  James  Theatre  with  Mrs.  Kendal  as  the 
heroine,  December,  and  ran  sixty-seven  nights. 

Contributed  "  Dedicatory  Poem  to  the  Princess 
Alice  "  and  "  The  Defence  of  Lucknow  "  to  The 
Nineteenth  Century  for  April. 

*#*  Tennysoniana.  Second  edition,  revised  and  enlarged. 
London :  Pickering  &  Co.,  196,  Piccadilly,  mdcccixxtx. 
pp.  viii,  208.    (By  Richard  Herne  Shepherd.) 

Lesson*  from  My  Masters.  By  Peter  Bayne.  London  : 
John  Clarke  &  Co.,  13  and  14  Fleet  St.     1879.     pp.  viii,  437. 

Tennyson's  brother,  the  Rev.  Charles  Tennyson 
Turner,  died  at  Cheltenham,  April  25. 

1880.  Ballads  and  Other  Poems.  By  Alfred  Ten- 
nyson. London :  C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co.,  1 ,  Paternos- 
ter Square.     1880.    pp.  vi,  184. 

The  Cabinet  Edition  of  Tennyson's  Works,  in 
twelve  volumes,  published  by  C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co., 
was  completed  in  this  year. 

Contributed  two  poems  to  St.  Nicholas,  an  Amer- 
ican magazine  for  children,  and  ■*  De  Profundis  " 
to  The  Nineteenth  Century,  May. 

Prefixed  lines  entitled  "  Midnight,  June  30,1 879," 
to  Charles  Tennyson  Turner's  Collected  Sonnets,  Old 
and  New.  London:  C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co.  1880. 
pp.  xxii,  390. 

Tennyson  declined  the  nomination  for  Lord  Rec- 
torship of  Glasgow  University,  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  unwilling  to  be  "  a  party  candidate  for  the 
conservative  club." 

•»*  "  A  New  Study  of  Tennyson,"  by  J.  Churton  Collins. 

in  The  Cornhill  Magazine,  January  and  July,  and  July,  1881. 

Theodore  Watts  wrote  a  sonnet  "  to  Alfred  Tennyson,  on 


CBRONOLOGY.  371 

his  publishing,  in  his  seventy-first  year,  the  most  richly  vari- 
ous volume  of  English  verse  that  has  appeared  in  his  own 
century." 

"Tennyson's  Poems,"  in  The  British  Quarterly  Review, 
reprinted  in  LitteWs  Living  Age  for  December  26. 

1881.  The  play  of  The  Cup  was  produced  at  the  Ly- 
ceum Theatre,  with  Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry 
in  the  leading  parts,  January  3.  It  ran  for  more 
than  one  hundred  nights  and  was  a  decided  success. 

Contributed  "  Despair "  to  The  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury ;  and  "  The  Charge  of  the  Heavy  Brigade  "  to 
Macmillan's  Magazine. 

Sat  to  Millais  for  his  portrait. 

*#*  Mr.  Walter  E.  Wace  published  Alfred  Tennyson,  His 
Life  and  Work*.  Edinburgh  :  Macniven  A  Wallace,  pp.  vii, 
203. 

A  Key  to  Tennyson' t  In  Memoriam.  By  Alfred  Oatty, 
D.  D.    London  :  D.  Bogue.    pp.  xi,  144. 

"Mr.  Tennyson'a  New  Volume,"  by  Sidney  Colvin,  in 
Macmillan's  Magazine,  January. 

Mr.  A.  C.  Swinburne  published  an  article  on  "Tennyson 
and  Musset,"  in  The  Fortnightly  Review,  February  1, 1881. 
Reprinted  in  Miscellanies.  London :  Chatto  &  Windus,  1886. 

"  Alfred  Tennyson  and  His  New  Poems,"  by  Enrico  Nen- 
cioni,  in  Fanfulla  della  Domenica,  Rome,  April  10. 

"A  Study  of  Tennyson,"  by  R.  H.  Stoddard,  in  The 
North  American  Review,  July. 

1882.  The  play  of  The  Promise  of  Mat  was  produced 
at  the  Globe  Theatre,  under  the  direction  of  Mrs. 
Bernard-Beere,  in  November :  a  failure. 

Hands  all  Round  was  recast  as  a  patriotic  song 
and  printed  with  music  by  Mrs.  Tennyson. 

•»*  A  Study  of  the  Princess.  By  S.  E.  Dawson.  Montreal : 
Dawson  Brothers,  Publishers,     pp.  120. 

"Maud,"  a  critical  article  by  Enrico  Nencioni,  in  Dome- 
nica Letteraria.    Rome  :  March  19. 

1883.  Tennyson  accompanied  Mr.  Gladstone  on  a  sea 
trip  to  Copenhagen,  where  they  were  received  by 


372  APPENDIX. 

the  King  and  Queen  of  Denmark,  the  Czar  and 
Czarina,  the  King  and  Queen  of  Greece,  and  the 
Princesa  of  Wales. 

Later  in  the  year  it  was  announced  that  Queen 
Victoria  had  offered  a  peerage  to  Tennyson,  and  he 
had  accepted  it. 

Tennyson  wrote  the  epitaph  on  Caxton,  for  the 
memorial  window  in  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster. 

Contributed  "  Frater  Ave  atque  Vale  "  to  The 
Nineteenth  Century,  March. 

•#*  "  Alfred  Tennyson,"  by  Mrs.  Anne  Thackeray  Ritchie, 
in  Harper's  Magazine  for  December. 

"Milton  and  Tennyson,"  in  The  Presbyterian  Review. 
New  York.     By  Henry  van  Dyke. 

The  Earlier  and  Less-Known  Poems  of  Tennyson.  By 
C.  E.  Mathews.  Birmingham  :  1883.  pp.  34.  "  In  Memo- 
riam,"  and  "The  Idylls  of  the  King,"  critical  articles  by 
Enrico  Neniconi,  in  Fan/ulla  delta  Domenica.  Rome  :  May 
6,  and  September  9. 

1884.  The  Cup  and  the  Falcon.  By  Alfred,  Lord 
Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate.  London :  Macmillan  & 
Co.     1884.     pp.  146. 

Becket.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  Lau- 
reate.   London:  Macmillan  &  Co.    1884.     pp.213. 

Also  a  New  and  Revised  Edition  of  his  complete 
Works,  in  seven  volumes;  and  in  one  volume, 
pp.  v,  640,  revised  text. 

Tennyson  was  gazetted  Baron  of  Aldworth  and 
Faxringford,  January  18,  and  took  his  seat  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  March  11. 

Contributed  "  Freedom  "  to  Macmillan 's  Maga- 
zine for  December;  introductory  verses  to  lios 
Rosarum,  by  E.  V.  B. ;  a  verse  to  a  small  pamphlet 
printed  for  the  benefit  of  the  Chelsea  Hospital  for 
Women,  and  "  Early  Spring  "  to  The  Youth's  Com- 
panion, Boston. 


CHRONOLOGY  373 

Elected  President  of  the  Incorporated  Society  of 
Authors. 

•#»Mr.  Henry  J.  Jennings  published  Lord  Tennyson.  A 
Biographical  Sketch.  London :  Chatto  &  Windus.  pp.  vii, 
270. 

Teiinyton't  In  Memoriam.  It*  Purpose  and  Structure. 
By  John  F.  Qenung.  Boston  :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1884. 
pp.  vi,  199. 

"  The  Genesis  of  Tennyson's  '  Maud,'  "  by  Richard  Heme 
Shepherd,  in  The  North  American  Review  for  October. 

1885.  Tiresias  *a#:d  Othek  Poems.  By  Alfred,  Lord 
Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  P.  L.  London :  Macmillan 
&  Co.  1885.  pp.  viii,  204.  Dedicated  "  To  my 
good  friend,  Robert  Browning." 

Lyrical  Poems  :  selected  and  annotated  by  F. 
T.  Palgrave.  London:  Macmillan  &  Co.  1885. 
pp.  vii,  270. 

Contributed  "  The  Fleet "  to  The  Times,  April 
23;  "To  H.  R.  H.  Princess  Beatrice"  to  The 
Times,  July  23 ;  "  Vastness  "  to  MacmiUan't  Maga- 
zine, November. 

%*  Hon.  Roden  Noel  reviewed  "  The  Poetry  of  Tennyson  " 
in  The  Contemporary  Review,  February. 

Mr.  Conde  B.  Pallen  published  a  criticism  of  the  "  Idylls 
of  the  King,"  in  The  Catholic  World,  April. 

August  in  Filon  published  an  extended  critique  of  Tenny- 
son in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Monde*,  September. 

Urbana  Scripta.  By  Arthur  Galton.  London  :  Elliot 
Stock,  62,  Paternoster  Row.  1885.  pp.  t,  237.  Essay  on 
"  Lord  Tennyson,"  pp.  36-68. 

•Review  of  Tiresku,  by  T.  H.  Caine,  in  The  Academy,  voL 
ixviii,  p.  403. 

1886.  Lockslev  Hall  Sixty  Years  After,  etc.  By 
Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  P.  L.,  D.  C.  L.  London  : 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  and  New  York.     1886.     pp.  201. 

The  "  Ode  to  India  and  the  Colonies  "  was  writ- 
ten for  the  opening  of  the  Colonial  Exhibition  in 
Loudon,  May  4. 


-374  APPENDIX. 

A  new  complete  edition  in  ten  volumes  (revised 
text),  and  in  one  volume  (slight  alterations). 

%*  "  Locksley  Hall,  etc.,"  was  reviewed  by  Richard  Holt 
Button  (?)  in  The  Spectator,  December  18  ;  by  the  Rt.  Hon. 
W.  E.  Gladstone  in  The  Nineteenth  Century,  January,  1887 ; 
and  by  Walt  Whitman  in  The  Critic,  New  York,  January 
1,1887. 

Jack  and  the  Bean-Stalk,  by  Hallam  Tennyson,  published 
by  Macmillan  &  Co.  The  illustrations  are  from  unfinished 
sketches  by  Randolph  Caldecott. 

Lionel  Tennyson  died  on  the  homeward  voyage 
from  India,  April  20. 

1887.  Contributed  "  Carmen  Saecula "  to  Macmillan's 
Magazine,  April. 

*#*  "  Th®  Genesis  of  '  In  Memoriam,'  "  published  by 
Richard  Heme  Shepherd,  in  Watford's  Antiquarian. 

Article  on  "The  Palace  of  Art"  in  The  New  Princeton 
Review,  vol.  iv.,  by  Henry  van  Dyke. 

X888.  A  new  edition  of  Tennyson's  complete  works 
published  by  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1888-1889,  in  eight 
volumes.  In  this  edition  the  idyll  of  Geraint  was 
divided  into  The  Marriage  of  Geraint  and  Geraint 
and  Enid,  and  Balin  and  Balan  was  put  into  its 
proper  place,  thus  completing  the  Epic  as  it  now 
stands. 

Tennyson  had  a  severe  illness  in  the  autumn  and 
winter  of  this  year. 

%*  Studies  on  the  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail.  By  Alfred 
Nutt.     London  :   David  Nutt. 

A  Companion  to  In  Memoriam.  By  Elizabeth  Rachel 
Chapman.  London :  Macmillan  &  Co.,  and  New  York.  1888. 
pp.  72. 

The  Tennyson  Flora.  Three  Lectures  by  Leo  H.  Grfndon. 
Published  as  an  Appendix  to  the  Report  of  the  Manchester 
Field  Naturalists  and  Archaeological  Society  for  the  year 
1887. 

"  Tennysonian  Trees,"  an  article  in  The  Gardener's  Maga> 
tine  for  December  29. 


CHRONOLOGY.  375 

"Dethroning  Tennyson,"  by  A.  C.  Swinburne,  in  The 
Nineteenth  Century,  January. 

"Tennyson's  Idylls,"  by  Anna  Vernon  Dorsey,  in  The 
American  Magazine,  May ;  and  by  R.  W.  Boodle,  in  The 
Canadian  Monthly,  April. 

An  article  iu  the  Pall  Mall  Gnsetlc,  December  20,  entitled 
**  la  Tennyson  a  Spiritualist  1  " 

1889.  Demeter  and  Other  Poems.  By  Alfred,  Lord 
Tennyson,  P.  L.,  D.  C.  L.  London :  Macmillan  & 
Co.,  and  New  York.     1889.     pp.  vi,  175. 

This  volume  was  published  on  December  13, 
1889,  and  it  is  said  that  20,000  copies  were  sold 
within  a  week. 

Contributed  "  The  Throstle  "  to  The  New  Review 
for  October. 

An  edition  of  the  complete  poems  in  one  volume 
(without  "Demeter"),  pp  v.  807,  was  published 
early  in  the  year.  In  this  edition  we  have  for  the 
first  time  the  title,  "  Idylls  of  the  King,  In  Twelve 
Books,"  and  an  Index  of  First  Lines. 

%*  The  Poetry  of  Tennyson.  By  Henry  van  Dyke.  New 
York :  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  London  :  Elkin  Mathews. 
Vigo  St.    1889.    pp.  xiii,  296. 

Prolegomena  to  In  Memoriam.  By  Thomas  Davidson. 
Boston  and  New  York :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1889.  pp. 
vi,  177. 

The  Idylls  of  the  Ki-ng.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson. 
Dlustrated.  In  shorthand  by  Arthur  G.  Doughty,  M.  A. 
The  Dominion  Illustrated  Press,  Montreal.     1889. 

A  volume  containing  three  of  Tennyson's  poems  :  "To  K. 
L."  (Edmund  Lear),  "  The  Daisy,"  and  "  The  Palace  of  Art," 
illustrated  with  drawings  by  Edmund  Lear,  the  artist's  por- 
trait and  Watts'  portrait  of  Tenny.  on,  was  published  by 
Boussod,  Valadon  &  Co.,  London.  One  hundred  copies 
signed  by  Lord  Tennyson. 

In  the  Magazines,  among  others,  the  following  articles  ap- 
peared :  In  The  Nineteenth  Century,  March,  "  Tennyson  as 
Prophet,"  by  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers  ;  in  Scribner's  Magazine, 
August,  "The  Two  Locksley  Halls,"  by  T.  B.  Lounsbury, 
and  "  Tennyson's  First  Flight,"  by  Henry  van  Dyke  ;  in  The 


m 


APPENDIX. 


Century  Magazine,  "  The  Bible  in  Tennyson,"  by  Henry  yan 
Dyke.  In  The  Baptist  Review  (U.  S.  A.),  January,  an  article 
on  "Tennyson's  Art  and  Genius,"  by  Eugene  Parsons. 

In  The  Methodist  Recorder,  February  28  to  March  21,  four 
articles  on  "  The  Poets  Laureate  of  England,"  by  Rev.  George 
Lester. 

In  The  Spectator,  February  2,  an  article  on  "  Tennyson's 
Undertones"  discussed  the  question  of  spiritualism  in  his 
poetry. 

Mr.  Napier  printed  in  Glasgow,  for  private  circulation,  one 
hundred  copies  of  a  volume  entitled,  "  Homes  and  Haunts 
of  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson." 

Tennyson's  eightieth  birthday,  on  August  6,  called  out  a 
great  number  of  articles.  Editorials  in  the  New  York  Times, 
Tribune,  and  Herald ;  in  The  Mail  and  Express,  by  Mr. 
Edmund  Gosse  ;  in  The  Hartford  Daily  Times,  by  Mr.  Frank 
L.  Burr ;  in  The  Athenceum,  a  sonnet  by  Mr.  Theodore  Watts ; 
in  Macmillan'*  Magazine,  a  sonnet  by  Rev.  H.  D.  Rawnsley, 
and  lines  "To  Lord  Tennyson,"  by  Lewis  Morris. 
1890.  A  portrait  of  Lord  Tennyson,  in  his  robes  as 
D.  C.  L.,  was  completed  by  Mr.  G.  F.  Watts,  and 
given  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

A  new  edition  of  the  Poetical  Works  (without 
the  Dramas),  in  one  volume,  18mo,  pp.  viii,  535, 
issued  by  Macmillan  &  Co.  Also  a  new  edition 
with  the  Dramas,  in  one  volume,  8vo.  pp.  v,  842. 
The  same  as  the  edition  of  1889,  with  Demeter  and 
Other  Poems  added. 

%*  In  Tennyson  Land.  By  John  Cuming  Walters.  Illus- 
trated.    London  :  George  Redway.     1890.     pp.  108. 

The  Isles  0/ Greece.  Sappho  and  Al emus.  By  Frederick 
Tennyson,  author  of  "Days  and  Hours."  London  and  New 
York !  Macmillan  &  Co.    1890.    pp.  xiv,  443. 

Alfred  Austin  reviewed  "  Lord  Tennyson's  New  Volume  " 
in  The  National  Review,  January.  Mr.  C.  J.  Caswell  printed 
an  article  on  "Tennyson's  Schooldays"  in  The  Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  June  19.  Mr.  Eugene  Parsons  had  an  essay  on  Ten- 
nyson in  The  Examiner  (New  York),  February,  and  another 
in  The  Chautauquan,  June.  An  article  was  published  on 
"Tennyson  and  Browning"  in  The  Edinburgh  Review. 
"Tennyson:  and  After?"  in  The  Fortnightly  Review  for 


CHRONOLOGY.  377 

May.  "  111  King  Arthur's  Capital,"  by  J.  Cuming  Walters, 
in  November  number  of  Igdraril  (the  Journal  of  the  Ruskin 
Reading  Guild).  "  Christmas  with  Lord  Tennyson,"  by  Rev. 
George  Lester,  in  The  Fireside  "Magazine,  December.  "  An 
Arthurian  Journey  "  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  June. 

In  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for  March,  1890,  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich  published  a  poem  on  "Tennyson." 

1891.     Contributed  "A  Song"  to  The  New  Review  for 
March. 

Other  verses  by  Lord  Tennyson  have  since  ap- 
peared in  print,  viz.,  a  stanza  written  in  a  volume 
of  his  poems  presented  to  Princess  Louise  of 
Schleswig-Holstein,  by  representatives  of  the  nurses 
of  England ;  lines  on  the  christening  of  the  infant 
daughter  of  the  Duchess  of  Fife ;  a  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  James  Russell  Lowell ;  and  a  prefatory 
verse  to  Pearl. 

A  new  Popular  Edition  of  Tennyson  in  one 
volume,  revised  throughout  by  the  Author.  1891 
Macmillau  &  Co.  pp.  842.  With  a  new  steel 
portrait. 

%»  The  Poetry  0/  Tennyson.  By  Henry  van  Dyke.  Sec- 
ond edition.    Revised  and  enlarged.    New  York  and  London. 

The  Laureate's  Country.  A  Description  of  Places  con- 
nected with  the  Life  of  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson.  By  Alfred 
J.  Church,  M.  A.  With  many  illustrations  from  Drawings 
by  Edward  Hull.  London:  Seeley  and  Co.,  Limited,  Essex 
Street,  Strand.     1891.     pp.  111. 

Daphne  and  Other  Poems.  By  Frederick  Tennyson, 
Author  of  "Days  and  Hours."  London  and  New  York: 
Macmillan  &  Co.     1891.     pp.  522. 

Illustrations  of  Tennyson.  By  John  Churton  Collins. 
London  :  Chatto  &  Windus.     1891.     pp.  xii,  186. 

In  The  Art  Journal  for  January  and  February,  two  arti- 
cles, by  P.  Anderson  Graham,  on  "  Lord  Tennyson's  Child- 
hood," illustrated  by  H.  E.  Tidemarsh. 

In  The  CornhUl  Magazine,  for  February,  "  Illustrations 
of  Animal  Life  In  Tennyson's  Poems." 

Mr.  C.  J.  Caswell  printed  an  article  on  "Lord  Tennyson's 


S78  APPENDIX. 

Birthday  "  in  Notes  and  Queries,  March  14  ;  and  another  on 
"A  Comitia  of  Errors"  in  The  Birmingham  Weekly  Mer- 
cury, April  11. 

Prof.  Albert  S.  Cook  had  an  article  on  "  St.  Agnes'  Eve," 
in  "Poet-Lore,"  January  15. 

1892.  Lord  Tennyson  published  verses  on  "The  Death 
of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  and  Avondale "  in  The 
Nineteenth  Century,  February. 

The  play  of  The  Foresters,  a  romantic  pastoral 
drama,  was  produced  at  Daly's  Theatre  in  New 
York,  on  Thursday  Night,  March  19.  Miss  Ada 
Rehan  played  the  leading  part  of  Marian  Lee.  Mr. 
Drew  appeared  as  Robin  Hood.  A  purely  formal 
production  of  the  play  was  made  in  London,  on  the 
same  day,  at  the  Lyceum,  for  the  purpose  of  secur- 
ing the  copyright. 

The  Foresters  :  Robin  Hood  and  Maid 
Marian.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  Lau- 
reate. New  York  :  Macmillan  &  Co.,  and  London. 
1892.  pp.  155.  (Issued  in  New  York  in  April.) 
Also  a  large-paper  edition. 

Lord  Tennyson  died  at  Aldworth,  October 
6,  between  one  and  two  in  the  morning. 

Silent  Voices  (ten  lines  printed  for  copyright 
purposes,  on  a  single  sheet,  October  12).  Macmil- 
lan &  Co.     1892. 

The  Death  of  03none,  Akbar's  Dream,  and 
Other  Poems.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet 
Laureate.  New  York :  Macmillan  &  Co.,  and  Lon- 
don. 1892.  pp.  vi,  113.  (Issued  in  New  York, 
October  29.)  Printed  also  on  large  paper.  200 
copies. 

The  English  large-paper  edition  contained  five 
portraits,  but  omitted  the  song  "  The  Bee  and  the 
Flower." 


CHRONOLOGY.  379 

*#*  The  Poetry  of  Tennyson.  Third  edition.  By  Henry 
ran  Dyke.  New  York  :  Charles  Scribner's  Son*.  1802. 
London  :  Elkin  Mathews,  Vigo  St.     pp.  xiii,  376. 

The  Golden  Guess.  A  Series  of  Essays,  by  John  Vance 
Cheney.  Boston :  Lee  &  Shepard.  1892.  (Essay  on  Ten- 
nyson and  his  Critics.) 

Homes  and  Haunts  of  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  Lau- 
reate. By  George  G.  Napier,  M.  A.  Glasgow  :  James  Macle- 
hose  &  Sons,  Publishers  to  the  University.  1892.  pp.  xvi, 
204. 

Records  of  Tennyson,  Ruskin,  and  Browning.  By  Anne 
Thackeray  Ritchie.  New  York :  Harper  &  Brothers.  1892. 
pp.  190. 

Tennyson's  Life  and  Poetry :  and  Mistakes  concerning 
Tennyson.  By  Eugene  Parsons.  Chicago :  1892.  (Second 
edition,  revised  and  enlarged,  1893.  Printed  for  the  author, 
43  Bryant  Ave.) 

Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson.  By  A.  Waugh,  B.  A.  Ozon. 
London:  1892.  (Second  edition,  United  States  Book  Com- 
pany, New  York,  1893.) 

Tennyson  and  "  In  Memoriam  "  .•  An  Appreciation  and 
a  Study.  By  Joseph  Jacobs.  London  :  David  Nutt,  in  the 
Strand.     1892.     lCmo,  pp.  x,  108. 

"Tennyson's  Foresters,"  in  The  Athenaeum,  vol. 
ii.  pp.  461,  493.  By  Theodore  Watts.  "The 
Study  of  Tennyson,"  in  The  Century  Magazine,  by 
Henry  van  Dyke. 

1893.  Lord  Tennyson's  Works.  Globe  8vo  edition, 
in  ten  volumes.  Vols,  viii.,  ix.,  x.  New  York: 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  and  London.  1893.  (Vol.  viii. 
contains  "  Becket "  and  "  The  Cup ;  "  vol.  ix.,  "The 
Foresters,"  "The  Falcon,"  "The  Promise  of 
May;"  vol.  x.,  "Teiresias,  and  Other  Poems," 
"Demeter,  and  Other  Poems,"  "The  Death  of 
CEnone  and  Other  Poems." 

Maud:  A  Monodrama.  London:  Macmillan 
&  Co.  Printed  by  William  Morris,  at  the  Kelm- 
scott  Press.     1893. 

Poems  by  Two  Brothers.  Second  edition. 
Edited  by  Hallam,  Lord  Tennyson.     New  York: 


380  APPENDIX. 

Macraillan  &  Co.,  and  London.  1893.  Crown  8vo, 
pp.  xx,  251.  (The  first  reprint  of  the  volume  pub- 
lished in  1827,  in  which  the  late  Poet  Laureate 
made  his  earliest  appearance  before  the  public. 
As  far  as  possible  the  poems  have  been  attributed 
to  their  respective  authors  Four  new  poems  have 
been  added  from  the  original  MS.,  and  the  Cam 
bridge  prize  poem  on  Timbuctoo  has  also  been 
included  in  the  volume.  There  is  also  a  large- 
paper  edition,  with  facsimiles  of  the  MS.,  limited 
to  300  copies.) 

Becket:  A  Tkagedt.  In  a  Prologue  and 
four  Acts.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson.  As  ar- 
ranged for  the  stage  by  Henry  Irving,  and  pre- 
sented at  the  Lyceum  Theatre  on  February  6, 1 893. 
New  York:  Macmillan  &  Co  ,  and  London.  1893. 
pp.  62. 

BOOKS   ON    TENNYSON   PUBLISHED    SINCE   1892.      PAR- 
TIAL  LIST. 

A  Study  of  the  Works  of  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson.  By 
Edward  Campbell  Tainsh.  New  edition.  Macmillan  &  Co. 
1893. 

Lord  Tennyson.  A  Biographical  Sketch.  By  Henry  J. 
Jennings.  Second  Edition.  London :  Chatto  &  Windus. 
1893. 

Essays  on  Lord  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King.  By  H. 
Littledale.    Macmillan  &  Co.     1893. 

The  Poems  of  Arthur  Henry  Hallam  Together  with  His 
Essay  in  the  Lyrical  Poems  of  Alfred  Tennyson.  Edited 
with  an  introduction  by  Richard  le  Gallienne.  London  : 
Elkin  Mathews  &  John  Lane.      New  York :  Macmillan  & 

CO.       MDCCCXCIH. 

Tennyson's  Heroes  and  Heroines.  Illustrated  by  Marcus 
Stone.    London  :  Tuck  &  Sons.    1893. 

The  Scenery  of  Tennyson's  Poems.  Etchings  after  draw- 
ings by  various  authors.  Letterpress  by  B.  Francis. 
London  :  J.  &  E.  Bumpus.     1893. 

Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  and  His  Friends.  A  series  of 
25  portraits  and  frontispiece  in  photogravure  from  the  nega- 
tives of  Mrs.  Julia  Margaret  Cameron  and  H.  H.  H.  Cameron. 


CHRONOLOGY.  381 

Reminiscences  by  Anne  Thackeray  Ritchie,  with  an  Intro- 
duction by  H.  H.  Hay  Cameron.  London  :  T.  Fisher  Unwin, 
1893. 

New  Studies  in  Tennyson.  By  Morton  Lnoe.  Second 
Edition.     Clifton  :  J.  Barker  &  Son.     1893. 

A  Handbook  to  the  Works  of  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson, 
By  Morton  Luce.    London  :  George  Bell  &  Sons.    1896. 

Tennyson :  his  Art  and  Relation  to  Modern  Life.  By 
Stopford  A.  Brooke.    London  :  Isblster  &  Co.    1894. 

Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King,  and  Arthurian  Story  from 
the  XVIth  Century.  By  M.  W.  Maccallum.  Glasgow: 
Maclehose  &  Sons.     1894. 

A  Primer  of  Tennyson  with  a  Critical  Essay.  By  William 
Macneile  Dixon.  Litt.  D.,  A.  M,  LL.  B.  (Mason  College.) 
London.    Methuen  &  Co.    1896. 

The  Growth  of  the  Idylls  of  the  King.  By  Richard  Jones. 
Philadelphia  :  Lippincott  Co.    1895. 

Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Edited 
by  W.  R.  Nicoll  and  T.  J.  Wise.  (Contains  "  The  Building 
of  the  Idylls,"  and  "Tennysoniana.")  New  York:  Dodd, 
Mead  &  Co.    1896. 

The  Poetry  of  Tennyson.  By  Henry  Van  Dyke.  Eighth 
Edition  (in  the  Cameo  Series,  with  new  essay  on  In  Memor- 
riam.)    New  York :  Bcribners.    1897. 

Alfred  Lord  Tennyson.  A  Memoir  by  his  Son.  2  Tola. 
London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.  New  York  :  The  Macmillan  Co. 
1897. 

ANNOTATED  EDITIONS  OP  TENNYSON'S  WORKS. 

By  Dr.  William  J.  Rolfe.  Published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  Boston  and  New  York  :  — 

The  Princess. 

Select  Poems  of  Tennyson. 

The  Young  People's  Tennyson. 

Enoch  Arden,  and  Other  Poems. 
L^Idylls  of  the  King.    (2  vols. )    In  Memoriam. 
Published  by  Macmillan  &  Co.,  Loudon  and  New  York  :  — 

Lyrical  Poems.  Selected  and  Annotated  by  Francis 
Turner  Palgrave. 

Selections  from  Tennyson.  With  Introduction  and 
Notes  by  F.  J.  Rowe,  M.  A.,  and  W.  T.  Webb,  M  A. 

Tennyson  for  the  Young.  Selections  from  Lord  Tenny- 
son's Poems.  Edited,  with  Notes,  by  the  Rev.  Alfred 
Ainger,  M.  A.,  LL.  D.,  Canon  of  Bristol. 

The   Coming  of  Arthur,  and  the  Passing  of  Arthur 


k: 


382  APPENDIX. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  Prof.  F.  J.  Rowe 
of  Calcutta. 
■«  Enoch  Arden.    With  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  W.  T. 

K/Webb,  M.  A. 
'  Aylmer's  Field.    By  W.  T.  Webb,  M.  A 

The  Princess.    By  P.  M.  Wallace,  M.  A 
Garelh  and  Lynelte.     By  G.  C.  Macauley,  M.  A. 
Geraint  and  Enid.     By  the  same  editor. 
The  Holy  Grail.     By  the  same  editor. 
Published  by  Effingham  Maynard  &  Co.,  New  York  :  — 
Enoch  Arden.    With  Introduction  and  Notes  by  Dr. 
Albert  F.  Blaisdell. 

The  Two  Voices,  etc.    With  Introduction  and  Notes  by 
Prof.  Hiram  Corson  of  Cornell  University. 
Elaine. 
In  Memoriam. 
The  Holy  Grail. 

THE  PUBLISHED  WORKS  OP  ALFRED  TENNYSON: 
WITH  DATES,   TITLES,   AND  NUMBER  OF  PAGB8. 

1827.  Poems  by  Two  Brothers.  London  :  Printed  for  W.  Simp- 
kin  and  R.  Marshall,  Stationers'-Hall-Court ;  and  J.  &  J. 
Jackson,  Louth.    HDCccxxvn.    Crown  8vo,  pp.  xii,  228. 

1829.  Timbt/ctoo.  A  poem  which  obtained  the  chancellor's  medal 
at  the  Cambridge  Commencement,  mdcccxxtx.  By  A. 
Tennyson,  of  Trinity  College.  (Printed  in  "  Prolusionet 
Academical :  mdcccxxix.  Cantabrigiae  :  typis  academicis 
excudit  Joannes  Smith."     pp.  41.) 

1830.  Poems,  Chiefly  Lyrical.  By  Alfred  Tennyson.  London  : 
Effingham  Wilson,  Royal  Exchange,  Comhill.  1830.  12mo, 
pp.  154,  and  leaf  of  errata. 

1832.     Poems.    By  Alfred  Tennyson.     London  :   Edward  Moxon, 

64  New  Bond  Street,    mdcccxxxhl     12mo,  pp.  163. 
1842.     Poems.    By  Alfred  Tennyson.     In  two  volumes.    London: 

Edward  Moxon,   Dover   Street,     mdcccxlh.    2  vols.  12mo, 

pp.  vii,  233  ;  vii,  231. 
1847.     The  Process  :  A  Medley.    By  Alfred  Tennyson.    London  : 

Edward  Moxon,  Dover  Street,     mdcccxlvh.    12mo,  pp.  164. 
1850.     In  Memoriam.    London:    Edward  Moxon,  Dover  Street 

mdcccl.     12mo,  pp.  vii,  210. 
1852.     Ode  on  the  Death  of  the  Dttm  of  Wellington.    By 

Alfred  Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate.    London :  Edward  Moxon, 

Dover  Street.     1852.    8vo,  pamphlet,  pp.  16. 
1855.     Maud,  and  Other  Poems.    By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C  L,, 

Poet  Laureate.     London:    Edward  Moxon.     1855.    12mo, 

pp.  IH 


CHRONOLOGY.  383 

1855.  Idtixs  of  the  Kino.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  0.  L., 
Poet  Laureate.  London:  Edward  Moxon  &  Co.,  Dover 
Street     1869.    12mo,  pp.  261. 

1864.  Enoch  Akdbn,  etc.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  Poet 
Laureate.  London :  Edward  Moxon  &  Co.,  Dover  Street. 
1864.    12nio,  pp.  178. 

1869.  The  Holy  Grail,  and  Otheb  Poems.  By  Alfred  Tenny- 
son, D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  Strahan  &  Co.,  Publishers, 
56,  Ludgate  Hill,  London.     1870.     12mo,  pp.  222. 

1872.  Gareth  and  Lynette,  etc.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L., 
Poet  Laureate.  Strahan  &  Co.,  56,  Ludgate  Hill,  London. 
1872.    12mo,  pp.  136. 

1875.  Queen  Mabt.  A  Drama.  By  Alfred  Tennyson.  London : 
Henry  8.  King  &  Co.     1875.    12mo,  pp.  viii,  278. 

1876.  Harold.  A  Drama.  By  Alfred  Tennyson.  London :  Henry 
S.  King  &  Co.     1877.     12mo,  pp.  viii,  161. 

1879.  The  Lover's  Tale.  By  Alfred  Tennyson.  London : 
C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co.,  1  Paternoster  Square.  1879.  12mo, 
pp.  95. 

1880.  Ballads,  and  Other  Poems.  By  Alfred  Tennyson. 
London  :  C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co.,  1  Paternoster  Square.  1880. 
12mo,  pp.  vi,  184. 

1884.  The  Cup  and  the  Falcon.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson, 
Poet  Laureate.  London :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1884.  12mo, 
pp.  146. 

Bucket.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate. 
London :  Macmillan  &  Co.     1884.     Crown  8vo,  pp.  213. 

1885.  Tibesias,  and  Other  Poems.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson, 
D  C.  L.  Poet  Laureate.  London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1885. 
12mo,  pp.  viii,  204.  .... 

Looislet  Hall  Sixty  Years  After,  etc.  By  Alfred, 
Lord  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  London  and  New 
York  :  Macmillan  &  Co.     1886.     12mo,  pp.  201. 

Demeter,  and  Other  Poems.  By  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson, 
P.  L.,  D.  C.  L.  London  and  New  York:  Macmillan  &  Co. 
1889.     12mo,  pp.  vi.  175.  „.«.._       ti„ 

1892.  The  Foresters:  Robin  Hood  and  Maid  Marxan^  J* 
Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate.  New  York  and 
London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.    1892.    12mo,  pp.  1&&- 

The  Death  of  C3none,  Akbar's  Dream,  and  Other 
Poems.  By  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  La«ref*«-  New 
York  and  London :    Macmillan  &  Co.     1892.      12mo,  pp. 

vU13.  ...;M 

1893.  Poems  by  Two  Brothers.     "  Hmc  vo*  norimus  esse  nihil. 
—  Martial.    New  York  and  London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.    1893 
pp.  xx,  251.    (Preface  by  Hallam,  Lord  Tennyson.) 


1886. 


1889. 


384  APPENDIX. 

A  PARTIAL  LIST 

OF  TRANSLATIONS  OF  TENNYSON'S  WORKS. 
Latin  and  Greek. 

In  Memoriam,  translated  into  Latin  elegiac  Terse  by  Oswald  A. 
Smith ;  for  private  circulation  only.  Noticed  in  Edinburgh  Be- 
view,  April,  1866. 

Enoch  Arden,  translated  into  Latin  by  Gulielmua  Belwyn.  Loud. 
Edv.  Moxon  et  Soc.    A.  d.  MoccoLxrn. 

Horce  Tennytoniana,  aive  Eclog®  e  Tennysono,  Latine  Eeddita;. 
Cora  A.  J.  Church.  Lond.  et  Cantab.  Macmillan  et  Soc  mdocolxx. 
pp.  viii,  139. 

Crotring  the  Bar,  and  a  Few  Other  Translations.  By  H.  M.  B.  (Not 
published.)  1890.  Cambridge,  printed  by  C.  J.  Clay,  M.  A. ,  & 
Sons,  at  the  University  Press,  pp.  67.  (By  Dr.  Butler,  Master  of 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  Twelve  Latin  translations  and  seven 
Greek  translations  of  "  Crossing  the  Bar,"  in  various  metres.) 

Vertet  and  Translation*  by  O.  S.  C.   1862.    (C.  S.  Calverley.)  Con- 
tains a  Latin  version  of  Section  106  of  In  Memoriam. 
Ctautur, 

Qedichle :  ubers.  von  W.  Hertsberg.    Dessau,  1853.    pp.  viii,  369. 

In  Memoriam:  aus  dem  EngL  naoh  der  5"&  Auflage.  Braun- 
schweig, 1864. 

ETonigi-Idyllen  :  Ubers.  von  H.  A.  Feldmann.  2*  AufL  Hamburg, 
1872.    pp.  viii,  277. 

Konigs-Idyllen :  ubers.  von  W.  Scholz.    Berlin,  1867.    pp.  223. 

Enoch  Arden :  ubers.  von  Schellwien.    Quedlinburg,  1867.    pp.  47. 

Enoch  Arden:  Ubers.  von  Robert  WaldmUller.  (Ed.  Duboc.) 
2"-4"  Aufl.  Hamburg,  1868-1870.  pp.  42.  33**  Aufl.  Hamburg, 
1890. 

Aylmer*  Feld:  ubers.  von  F.  W.  Weber.    Leipzig,  1869. 

Enoch  Arden :  libers,  von  F.  W.  Weber.    Leipzig,  186a    pp.  42. 

Aylmers  Feld :  ubers.  von  H.  A.  Feldmann.  Hamburg,  1870.  pp.  44. 

Enoch  Arden  :  ubers.  von  H.  A.  Feldmann.  Hamburg,  1870.  pp.  46. 

AtugewahUe  Dichtungen :  Ubers.  von  H.  A.  Feldmann.  Hamburg, 
1870.    pp.89. 

Freundet-Klage,  nach  "  In  Memoriam :  "  frel  ttbertr.  von  Robert 
WaldmUUer.    Hamburg,  1870.    pp.  160. 

Autgewdhlte  Gedichte  :  Ubers.  von  M.  Rugard.  Elbing,  1872.  pp. 
v.  126. 

In  Memoriam  —  "Zum  Oedachtniu:  "  Ubers.  von  Agnes  von  Boh- 
len.    Berlin,  1874.    pp.  184. 

Harold,  eln  Drama:  deutsch  von  Alb.  Oraf  Wickeaburg.  Ham- 
burg, 1879-1880.    pp.  iv.  137. 


CHRONOLOGY.  385 

Enoch  Arden:  deutach  Ton  A.  Strodtmann.     Berlin,   1876.     2* 

verbess.  Aufiage,  1881.     pp.  71. 
Enoch  Arden :  deutsch  von  Carl  Eichholz.    2»«  Aufiage.    Hamburg, 

1881.    pp.  56. 
Eonigs-Idyllen :  In  Metrum  des  Orig.    fibers.   von  Carl  Welaer. 

Universal  BibUothek,  nrs.  1817,  1818.    Leipzig,   1883-1886.    pp. 

176. 
Enoch  Arden :  Students  Tauchnitz  Aufl.  mit  WOrterbuch,  bearb. 

von  Dr.  A.  Hamann.     Leipzig,  1886.     pp.  24. 
(BibUothek  der  Gesammt-Llteratur.) 
Ausgewdhlte  Dichtungen:  fibers,   von  A.  Strodtmann.    Hildburg- 

hausen,   1867.      Leipzig,  1887-1890/     Meyer's  Volksbficher,  nrs. 

371-373.     pp.  164. 
Enoch  Arden  :  frei  bearb.  fur  die  Jugend.     HausbibUothek.    Leip- 
zig, 1888.    pp.  29. 
Lockiley  Hall:  aus  dem  Engl,  von  Ferd.  Freiligrath.      Locksley 

Hall  tcchzig  Jahre  sp'dter:  Ubers.  von  Jakob  Pels.    Hamburg, 

1888.    pp.59. 
hocktley  Hall  sechzig  Jahre  sp'dter :  fibers,  von  Karl  B.  Esmarch. 

Gotha,  1888.     pp.  32. 
Enoch  Arden  :  aus  dem  Engl,  von  Oriebenow.    Halle,  1889.    pp.  35. 
Maud :  fibers,  von  F.  W.  Weber.    3"  Aufiage.    Paderbom,  1891. 

pp.  109. 

DtrrcH. 

Pe  molenaars-dochter:  Vrlj  bewerkt  door  A.  J.  de  Bull.  Utrecht, 

1859. 
Henoch  Arden  :  Naar  het  EngL  door  8,  J.  van  den  Bergh.  's  Hage, 

1869. 
Henoch  Arden  :  door  J.  L.  Werthelm.     Amsterdam,  1882. 
Vier  Idyllen  van  Koning  Arthur:  Amsterdam,  1883. 


iTi 

Dora :  Traduzione  dl  Giacomo  Zanella :  tu  Versi  di  Giacomo  Za* 

nella,  vol.  i.    Firenxe,  1868,  G.  Barber*,    pp.  350-359. 
(Another  translation  of  the  same  poem  by  the  same  author 

appeared  in  Varie  Versione  Poctiche  di  Giacomo  Zanella.   Firenze, 

1887.     Successori  Le  Mourner,     pp.  215-223.) 
La  Cena  d'  Oro  di  Alfredo  Tennyson :  Trad,  dl  Lodovico  Biagi   In 

Firenze.     Coi  Tipi  di  M.  Cellini  e  0.    1871.    pp.  22. 
Appendice  di  Alcune  Poesie  Varie.    pp.  23-30.    (D  Premio  della 

Virtu.     Un  Isoletta.     La  Ciocca  dei  Cape  Hi.     D  Flore.) 
Dora:  Traduzione  in  versi  di  Giuseppe  Chiarini.    Poesie,  Storie, 

Canli,  Traduzioni.    Livorno,  1874.    F.  Vigo.     pp.  407-418. 


386  APPENDIX. 

"  The  May  Queen :  "  Traduzione  dei  Marches!  Luigi  e  Raniero  da 
Calboli.     Roma,  1875. 

Idttli,  Uriche,  MM,  e  Legende,  Enoc  Arden,  Quadri  Dramatici : 
Traduzioni  di  Carlo  Faccioli  (Verona).  [1st  Ed.  1876,  2d  Ed. 
1879.]  3d  Ed.  1887.    Firenze,  Successori  Le  Monnier.    pp.  xii,  441. 

Enoch  Arden  di  Alfredo  Tennyson :  Recato  in  Vers!  Italian!  di  An- 
gelo  Saggioni.  Padova,  1876.  Stabilimento  ProiperinL  pp.  51. 
Nozze  Scopoli-Naccari.* 

(This  translation  was  reprinted  in  Letture  di  Famiglia.    Fi- 
renze, 1885.    pp.  109.) 

II  Primo  Divorbio  (NelV  Isola  di  Wight)  :  Trad,  di  Enrico  Castel- 
nuovo.  Venezia,  1886.  Stab.  Tipografico  Fratelli  Viaentini. 
pp.  19.    Nozze  Bordica-Selvalico. 

La  Prima  Lite:  Est  rat  to  dal  Giornale  "La  Battaglia  Bizantina: 
TraditzionediP.  T.  Pavolini.  Bologna,  1888.  Soc.  Tip.  Azzoguidi. 
pp.  12. 

La  Carica  della  Brigata  Lyght.  Le  Due  Sorelle.  In  Fiori  del 
Nord :  Versions  di  Moderne  Poesie  Tedesche  e  Inglese  di  Pietru 
Turati.    MUano,  1881.    Natale-Batteazatti.    pp.  133-137. 

Lyrical  Poem*  by  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  Poet  Laureate  :  with  co- 
pious prefatory  and  explanatory  notes  for  the  use  of  Italians 
by  Theophilus  C.  Cann.  Florence,  1887.  F.  Paggi.  pp.  31-68. 
(Locksley  Hall,  Lady  Clare,  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere,  St.  Agnes' 
Eve.) 

Italian  translations,  in  verse  and  prose,  from  Tennyson's  poems 
are  to  be  found  in  the  following  articles :  — 

"  Poeti  Stranieri  Modern!  —  Alfredo  Tennyson : "  di  Eugenio  Came- 
rini.  Nella  Nuova  Antologia.  Firenze,  Febbralo,  1870.  Vol.  xiii. 
pp.  229-249.    Frammenti  di  traduzione  in  prosa. 

"  Alfredo  Tennyson  e  le  sue  nuove  poesie."  (Ballads  and  other 
Poems,  1881.)  Articolo  critico  di  Eurico  Nencioni,  nel  Fanfulla 
della  Domenica,  Roma,  10  Aprile,  1881.  Traduzione  in  prosa  della 
poesia  Rizpah. 

"  Maud."  Articolo  critico  di  Enrico  Nencioni  nella  Domenica  Let- 
teraria,  Roma,  19  Marzo,  1882.   Frammenti  di  traduzione  in  prosa. 

*  It  la  an  Italian  custom  at  a  wedding  to  have  some  little  book 
printed,  containing  an  original  poem,  a  new  translation,  or  some- 
thing of  literary  novelty  and  appropriateness,  to  be  presented  to  the 
bride  and  groom  and  their  friends  as  a  memorial  of  the  marriage. 
The  note  indicates  that  Signore  Saggioni  had  his  translation  of 
Enoch  Arden  printed  as  a  gift  for  the  wedding  of  hia  friends  of  the 
families  of  Bcopoli  and  Naccari 


CHRONOLOGY.  387 

u Gil  Idilli  del  Re."  Art.  crit.  di  Enrico  Nencionl,  nel  Fanfulla 
deUa  Domenica,  Roma,  9  Settembre,  1883.  Traduzione  in  prosa 
di  on  frammento  della  Ginevra. 

"Lord  Tennyson:  Alcuni  suoi  acritti  minori."  Art.  crit.  di  F. 
Rodriguez,  nella  Nuova  Antologia,  Roma,  16  Luglio,  1890,  Serie 
m,  vol.  xxviii,  pp.  318-340.  Traduzionl  in  versi  dell'  idillio  II 
Ruscello,  della  ballata  Rizpah,  e  La  Diga  Estrema. 

French. 
Elaine,  Genievre,  Viviane,  Enide.    Trad,  par  Francuque  MicheL 

111.  par  Gustave  Dor<5.     Paris.     Hachette  et  Cie.     18C7-1869. 
Enoch  Arden.    Trad,  par  M.  de  la  Rive.     1870. 
Enoch  Arden.     Trad,  par  X.  Marmier.     1887. 
Idylles  el  Poemes:  Enoch  Arden:  Locktley  Ball.     Trad,  par  A. 

Buisson  du  Berger.    1888. 
Enoch  Arden.    Trad,  par  M.  r  Abbe  R.  Courtoia.    1890. 
Enoch  Arden.    Trad,  par  E.  Ihiglin.     1890. 

Swedish. 
Konung  Arthur  och  turns  Rid   ire :  Upsala,  1876. 
Elaine:  A.  Hjelmstjerna.    1877. 

NuEVTEGIiLN   AND    DANISH. 

Enoch  Arden :  overeat  af  A.  Munch.     Copenhagen.     1866. 
"  The  M ay  Queen  :"  overeat  af  A.  Falck.   Christiania.  1875.  (1855?) 
Idyller  om  Kong  Arthur  :  overeat  af  A.  Munch.   Copenhagen.   1876. 
Anna  og  Locktley  Slot :  overeat  af  A.  Hansen.     1872. 
"Sea  Dreams:"  "  Aylmer's  Field:"  overeat  af  F.  L.  Mynster. 
1877. 

Spanish. 

Enid  and  Elaine  :  translated  by  Lope  Giabert.     1875. 

Poemes  de  Alfredo  Tennyson  :  Enoch  Arden,  Gareth  y  Lynette,  Mer- 
lin y  Bibiana,  etc.  Tr.  by  D.  Vicente  de  Arana.  Barcelona. 
1883. 

Not*.  — The  difficulty  of  making  this  list  perfect  in  the  present 
state  of  bibliography  ie  immense.  It  is  only  in  the  German  and  the 
Italian  that  it  approaches  completeness  and  accuracy. 


A  LIST  OP 

BIBLICAL  REFERENCES  AND  ALLUSIONS 

FOUND   IN  THE 

WORKS  OF  TENNYSON. 


***  The  author  wishes  to  thank  the  many  correspond- 
ents, in  Canada,  in  England,  and  in  the  United  States, 
who  have  kindly  sent  him  additions  to  this  list  since  it 
was  first  printed,  in  1889.  It  might  be  enlarged  almost 
indefinitely.  On  the  other  hand,  perhaps  it  includes 
already  some  references  in  which  the  connection  with 
Scripture  is  purely  fanciful.  The  line  is  hard  to  draw. 
But  at  least  the  list  may  serve  to  show  beyond  a  doubt 
how  deeply  the  poetry  of  Tennyson  is  saturated  with 
the  influence  of  the  Book  which  is  at  once  "  a  well  of 
English  undefiled  "  and  "  a  well  of  water  springing  up 
into  everlasting  life." 


A  LIST  OF  BIBLICAL  REFERENCES  AND 
ALLUSIONS  FOUND  IN  THE  WORKS  OF 
TENNYSON. 


TlMBTJCTOO. 

"And  teach  him  to  attain 
By  shadowing  forth  the  Unattainable."* 

Matt.  5  :  48. 

Supposed  Confessions. 

"  My  sin  was  as  a  thorn 
Among  the  thorns  that  girt  Thy  brow." 

Matt.  27 :  29. 
"  In  this  extremest  misery 
Of  ignorance  I  should  require 

A  sign." 

6  1  Cor.  1 :  22. 

"  That  happy  morn 
When  angels  spake  to  men  aloud, 
And  thou  and  peace  to  earth  were  born." 

Luke  2  :  10. 
"  Brothers  in  Christ." 

Matt.  12:  50;  Col.  1:2. 
"  To  reconcile  me  with  thy  God." 

2  Cor.  5  :  20. 
** Bring  back  this  lamb  into  thy  fold." 

Luke  15  :  4. 

"  Pride,  the  sin  of  Devils." 

1  Tim.  3  :  6. 

*'  These  little  motes  and  grains  shall  be 

Clothed  on  with  immortality." 

1  Cor.  15  :  53. 

•  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect. 


392  APPENDIX. 

"  As  manna  on  my  wilderness." 

Ex.  16 :  16. 
"That  God  would  move 
And  strike  the  hard,  hard  rock,  and  thence, 
Sweet  in  their  utmost  bitterness, 
Would  issue  tears  of  penitence." 

Num.  20 :  1L 
The  Kraken. 

"  Until  the  latter  fire  shall  heat  the  deep." 

Rev.  8  :  8 ;  2  Pet.  3  :  10. 
Isabel. 

"  The  laws  of  marriage  charactered  in  gold 
Upon  the  blanched  tablets  of  her  heart." 

Ps.  37  :  31 ;  2  Cor.  3  :  3. 
"  And  thou  of  God  in  thy  great  charity." 

1  John  4  :  11. 

To . 

"  Like  that  strange  angel  which  of  old 
Until  the  breaking  of  the  light 
Wrestled  with  wandering  Israel." 

Gen.  32  :  24. 
The  Deserted  House. 

"  A  mansion  incorruptible." 

2  Cor.  6  : 1. 

"The  house  was  builded  of  the  earth  " 

1  Cor.  16  :  47. 
Adeline. 

"  Sabeean  spice." 

Is.  45 :  11. 

To  J.  M.  Kehble. 

"Arrows  of  lightnings." 

Zech.  9  :  14. 
Buonaparte. 

"  Late  he  learned  humility 
Perforce,  like  those  whom  Gideon  schooled  with  briers." 

Judges  8  :  16. 
Early  Sonnets  —  Poland. 

"  Lord,  how  long." 

6  Ps.  94  :  3. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  393 

Sonnet  X. 


"The  deluge." 

Gen.  7 :  11. 


Two  Voices. 


"  A  still  small  voice." 

1  Kings  19  :  12. 

"  Wonderfully  made." 

J  Ps.  139  :  14. 

"  When  first  the  world  began 
Young  Nature  through  five  cycles  ran 
And  in  the  sixth  she  moulded  man." 

Gen.  1 :  26. 
"  A  little  lower  than  angels." 

Ps.  8 :  5. 

"Like  Stephen." 

Acts  7  :  65. 

"  I  toil  beneath  the  curse." 

Gen.  3  :  17-19. 

"Naked  I  go." 

Eccl.  5  :  15. 

"  Though  one  should  smite  him  on  the  cheek." 

Luke  6  :  29. 
"  His  sons  grow  up  that  bear  his  name, 
Some  grow  to  honour,  some  to  Bhame." 

Job  14 :  26. 
"  The  place  he  knew  forgetteth  him." 

Ps.  103  :  16. 
" '  Omega !    Thou  art  Lord/  they  said." 

Rev.  1 : 8. 
"  He  may  not  do  the  thing  he  would." 

Gal.  5  :  17. 

"  Rejoice !    Rejoice  1 " 

J  J  Phil.  4 :  L 

Will  Waterproof  (1842). 

"  Like  Hezekiah's,  backward  runs 

The  shadow  of  my  days." 

J  Is.  38 : 8. 

"  If  old  things,  there  are  new." 

Matt.  13 :  52. 


394  APPENDIX. 

"  Who  shall  say  me  nay  1 " 

1  Kings  2  :  20. 
"  All  in  all." 

1  Cor.  16  :  28. 
The  Palace  of  Abt. 

"  I  built  myself  a  lordly  pleasure-house, 
•  Wherein  at  ease  for  aye  to  dwell. 
I  said, '  O  Soul,  make  merry  and  carouse, 

Dear  Soul,  for  all  is  well.' " 

Luke  12  :  18,  19. 

"  Howling  in  outer  darkness." 

6  Matt.  8  :  12. 

"  Common  clay  taken  from  the  common  earth 

Moulded  by  God." 

J  Gen.  2  :  7. 

"  Angels  rising  and  descending." 

Gen.  28  :  12. 
"  And  oft  some  brainless  devil  enters  in 

And  drives  them  to  the  deep." 

Luke  8 :  33. 

"Like  Herod  when  the  shout  was  in  his  ears, 
Struck  through  with  pangs  of  hell." 

Acts  12  :  21-23. 

"  God,  before  whom  ever  lie  bare 
The  abysmal  deeps  of  Personality." 

Heb.  4 :  13. 
"  Wrote  '  Mene,  mene,'  and  divided  quite 

The  kingdom  of  her  thought." 

6  Dan.  5  :  25. 

The  Palace  of  Art  (Edition  of  1833:  note,  p.  73). 

"  One  was  the  Tishbite  whom  the  raven  fed, 

As  when  he  stood  on  Carmel-steeps, 

With  one  arm  stretched  out  bare,  and  mocked  and  said, 

'  Come  cry  aloud  —  he  sleeps.' 

"Tall,  eager,  lean,  and  strong,  his  cloak  windborne 

Behind,  his  forehead  heavenly-bright 

From  the  clear  marble  pouring  glorious  scorn, 

Lit  as  with  inner  light." 

1  Kings  18  :  27. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  395 

"Robed  David  touching  holy  strings." 

2  Sam.  6  :  5. 
"Isaiah  with  fierce  Ezekiel, 
Swarth  Moses  by  the  Coptic  sea." 

"  As  power  andmight 

Abode  in  Samson's  hair." 

Judges  16  :  17. 

"  Far  off  she  seem'd  to  hear  the  dully  sound 
Of  human  footsteps  fall, 
As  in  strange  lands  a  traveller  walking  slow, 

In  doubt  and  great  perplexity, 
A  little  before  moonrise  hears  the  low 

Moan  of  an  unknown  sea, 
And  knows  not  if  it  be  thunder,  or  a  sound 
Of  rocks  thrown  down,  or  one  deep  cry 
Of  great  wild  beasts." 
Wisdom  of  Solovwn,  17  :  19  et  seq,  Apocrypha. 
Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere. 

"  The  gardener  Adam  and  his  wife." 

Gen.  2  :  15. 
The  Mat  Qoeen.    Conclusion. 

"  His  will  be  done." 

Matt.  6 :  10. 
"  He  taught  me  all  the  mercy,  for  he  showed  me  all  the 
sin. 
Now,  tho'  my  lamp  was  lighted  late,  there 's  One  will 
let  me  in." 

Malt.  25  :  1. 
"  And  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary  are 
at  rest." 

Job  3 :  17. 
The  Talking  Oak. 

"Thy  leaf  shall  never  fail." 

P$.  1 : 3. 
The  Lotus  Eaters. 

"  The  flower  ripens  in  its  place, 
Ripens  and  fades  and  falls,  and  hath  no  toil" 

Matt.  6  :  28- 


396  APPENDIX. 

A  Dream  of  Fair  Women. 

"The  end  of  Time." 

Rev.  10  :  6. 

"  The  daughter  of  the  warrior  Gileadite, 

A  maiden  pure  ;  as  when  she  went  along 

From  Mizpeh's  towered  gate  with  welcome  light, 

With  timbrel  and  with  song." 

Judges  11 :  34. 

"  A  threefold  cord." 

Eccl.  4  :  12. 

"The  everlasting  hills." 

Gen.  49  :  20. 

"  Gross  darkness." 

Is.  60  :  2. 

"  Moreover  it  is  written  that  my  race 

Hewed  Ammon  hip  and  thigh  from  Aroer 

On  Arnon  unto  Miuneth." 

Judges  11  :  33. 

"  Love  can  vanquish  death." 

Cant.  8  :  6. 

MORTE    D'ARTHUB. 

"Chaff  .  .  .  much  better  burnt."    (In  "The  Epic") 

Luke  3  :  17. 

"Such  time9  have  not  been  since  the  light  that  led 
The  holy  Elders  with  the  gift  of  myrrh." 

Matt.  2  :  2,  3. 

"  War  shall  be  no  more." 

Is.  2  :  4. 

The  Gardener's  Daughter. 

"  Eden." 

Gen.  2  :  8. 

"  Like  the  covenant  of  a  God,  to  hold 

From  thence  thro'  all  the  wjrlds." 

Is.  55 :  3. 

Edwin  Morris. 

"  Built  .  .  .  upon  a  rock." 

Matt.  7  :  24. 

"God  made  the  woman  for  the  man." 

1  Cor.  H  :  9;   Gen.  2  :  18. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  397 

St.  Simeon  Stvlites. 

"  The  meed  of  saints,  the  white  rohe  and  the  palm." 

Rev.  7 : 9. 

"  This  home 

Of  sin,  my  flesh." 

2  Cor.  5  :  6. 

"  Cover  all  my  sin." 

Ps.  32  :  1 ;  85  :  2. 

*  O  mercy,  mercy !    Wash  away  my  sin." 

Ps.  51 : 1,  2. 

"They  think  that  I  am  somewhat." 

Gal.  2 : 6. 

"  Can  I  work  miracles  and  not  be  saved  ?  " 

1  Cor.  13  :  2. 

"  Pontius  and  Iscariot." 

Matt.  26  :  14. 

"A  sinful  man,  conceived  and  born  in  sin." 

Ps.  51  :  5. 
"Abaddon  and  Asmodeus." 

Rev.  9  :  11 ;  Tobit  3  :  8. 

"  Mortify  your  flesh." 

Col.  3 :  5. 
"  Yield  not  me  the  praise, 
God  only." 

Ps.  115  : 1. 
"A  man  of  God." 

2  Tim.  3  :  17. 
The  Golden  Year. 

"  Cry  like  the  daughters  of  the  horse-leech,  Give !  " 

Prov.  30  :  15. 
Lockblet  Hall. 

"  Joshua's  moon  in  Ajalon." 

Josh.  10  :  12. 

"  But  I  count  the  gray  barbarian  lower  than  the  Chris- 
tian child." 

Matt.  11  :  11. 
"  Summer  isles  of  Eden." 

Gen.  2  :  8. 


398  APPENDIX. 

GODIVA. 

"  A  heart  as  rough  as  Esau's  hand." 

Gen.  27  :  23. 

"  An  everlasting  name." 

Is.  56  :  5. 

The  Day  Dream.    L'Envoi. 

"  For  since  the  time  when  Adam  first 
Embraced  his  Eve  in  happy  hour, 
And  every  bird  of  Eden  burst 
In  carol,  every  bud  to  flower." 

Gen.  2  :  23. 

St.  Agnes'  Eve. 

"  So  shows  my  soul  before  the  Lamb." 

Rev.  7  :  9  ;  5  :  8. 

"  So  in  my  earthly  house  I  am 

To  that  I  hope  to  be." 

2  Cor.  5  : 1. 

Draw  me,  thy  bride,  .  .  . 

In  raiment  white  and  clean." 

Rev.  3  :  5. 

"  The  Heavenly  bridegroom  waits 

To  make  me  pure  of  sin." 

Is.  62  :  5. 

"  The  Sabbaths  of  Eternity, 

One  Sabbath  deep  and  wide." 

Heb.  4  : 9. 

"  The  shining  sea." 

Rev.  15  :  2. 

The  Vision  of  Sin. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  be  saved  by  works." 

Gal.  2 :  16. 

"  God's  likeness." 

Gen.  1  :  26. 

"Far  too  naked  to  be  shamed." 

Gen.  2  :  25. 


To 


"  The  many-headed  beast." 

Rev.  13  :  1. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  399 

EnochArden. 

"  Cast  all  your  cares  on  God." 

1  Pet  5  : 7. 

"  That  anchor  holds." 

Heb.  6 :  19. 

44  The  uttermost  parts  of  the  morning." 

Ps.  139  : 9. 

"  The  sea  is  His :  He  made  it." 

Ps.  95 :  5. 

"  Under  the  palm-tree." 

Judges  4 : 5. 

•'  The  Sun  of  Righteousness." 

Mai.  4  :  2. 
"  These  be  palms 
Whereof  the  happy  people  strowing  cried, 

•  Hosanna  in  the  highest.' " 

John  12  :  13. 

"Set  in  this  Eden  of  all  plenteousness." 

Gen.  2 :  9. 
"  The  blast  of  doomi' 
^v^ -- ^  *~o^LThess.  4  :  16. 

Atlmkr's  Field.  ^ 

"  Dust  are  our  frames." 

Gen.  3 :  19. 

"  Sons  of  men,  daughters  of  God." 

Gen.  6  : 2. 
"  Pale  as  the  Jephtha's  daughter." 

Judges  11  :  34. 

"  Stumbling  blocks." 

1  Cor.  1  :  23. 

"Almost  all  that  is,  hurting  the  hurt, 
Save  Christ  as  we  believe  him." 

Matt.  12  :  20. 
"  Behold 
Your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate." 

Luke  13  :  35. 

"  Never  since  our  bad  earth  became  one  sea." 

Gen.  7. 

"  Gash  thyself,  priest,  and  honour  thy  brute  Baal." 

1  Kings  18  :  28 


400  APPENDIX. 

"The  babe  shall  lead  the  lion." 

It.  11 : «. 

"  The  wilderness  shall  blossom  as  the  rose." 

1$.  35  : 1. 
"  Fares  richly  in  fine  linen." 

Luke  16  :  19. 

"Leave  all  and  follow  me." 

Luke  18  :  22. 

"  His  light  about  thy  feet." 

Pt.  119  :  105. 

"  Carpenter's  son." 

Matt.  13  :  55. 

«  Wonderful,  Prince  of  Peace,  the  Mighty  God." 

Is.  9  :  6. 

"  As  not  passing  thro'  the  fire 
Bodies,  but  souls  —  thy  children's  —  thro'  the  smoke." 

Lev.  18 :  21. 

"  The  more  base  idolater." 

Col.  3  :  5. 

"  Rachel  by  the  palmy  well." 

J  Gen.  29:10. 

"  Ruth  amid  the  fields  of  corn." 

Ruth  2. 

"  Fair  as  the  angel  that  said  '  Hail.'  " 

Luke  1 :  28. 
"  She  walked, 
Wearing  the  light  yoke  of  that  Lord  of  love 
Who  stilled  the  rolling  wave  of  Galilee." 

Matt.  8  :  26 ;  11  :  30. 

'« O  thou  that  killest,  hadst  thou  known, 
O  tnou  that  stonest,  hadst  thou  understood 
The  things  belonging  to  thy  peace  and  ours. 

Luke  13  :  34:  19  :  32. 

"  Is  there  no  prophet  but  the  voice  that  calls 
Doom  upon  kings,  or  in  the  waste  '  Repent '?  " 

Mark  1  :  3,  4. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  401 

"  Is  not  onr  own  child  on  the  narrow  way, 
Who  down  to  those  that  saunter  in  the  broad 
Cries  '  Come  up  hither,'  as  a  prophet  to  us." 

Matt.  7 :  13. 
"  Poor  in  spirit." 

Matt.  5  :  3. 
"  A  rushing  tempest  of  the  wrath  of  God." 

P$.  11  :  6. 
"  Sent  like  the  twelve-divided  concubine 

To  inflame  the  tribes." 

Judges  19  :  29. 

"  Pharaoh's  darkness." 

Ex.  10  :  21. 

"  Folds  as  dense  as  those 
Which  hid  the  Holiest  from  the  people's  eyes." 

Matt.  27  :  46. 
"  Their  own  gray  hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave." 

Gen.  42 :  38. 

"  Knew  not  what  they  did." 

Luke  23  :  34. 

"  Will  not  another  take  their  heritage." 

Acts  1 :  20. 
"  Or  one  stone 
Left  on  another." 

Matt.  24  :  2;  Marl  13  :  2. 

"Is  it  a  light  thing?" 

6  *  h.  7 :  13. 

"  Those  that  swore 
Not  by  the  Temple,  but  by  the  gold." 

Matt.  23 :  16. 
"  And  made 
Their  own  traditions  God,  and  slew  the  Lord." 

Matt.  15  :  3;  Acts  5  :  30. 
Sea  Dreams. 

"  Simple  Christ." 

1  Cor.  2  :  2;  2  Cor.  11 1  8. 

"  The  scarlet  woman." 

Jitc.  17  :  3-6 


402  APPENDIX. 

"The  Apocalyptic  millstone." 

*  Rev.  18:21. 

"  That  great  Angel :  '  Thus  with  violence 

Shall  Babylon  be  cast  into  the  sea. 

Then  comes  the  close.' " 

Rev.  18 :  21. 

"Let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your  wrath." 

Eph.  4 :  26. 

"  Dear  Lord,  who  died  for  all." 

2  Cor.  5:15. 

"  When  the  great  Books  (see  Daniel  seven  and  ten) 

Were  opened." 

v  Dan.  7  :  10. 

"  We  live  by  faith." 

Gal.  2  :  20. 

"  All  things  work  together  for  the  good 

Of  those." 

Rom.  8  :  28. 

"  Never  took  that  useful  name  in  vain." 

Ex.  20 : 7. 
"  The  Cross  .  .  . 
And  Christ." 


"  Boanerges." 

Thi  Pkincess. 

"  Huge  Ammonites." 

"  A  fountain  sealed." 

"  A  land  of  promise." 

"  A  wolf  Within  the  fold. 


John  19 :  17. 
Mark  3  :  17. 

Num.  21 :  24. 
Cant.  4 :  12. 
Heb.  il :  9. 
Acts  20  :  29. 


"  All  those  hard  things 
That  Sheba  came  to  ask  of  Solomon." 

1  Kings  10  :  1. 

"  He.  the  wisest  man." 

1  Kings  4  :  31. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  403 

"  Feasted  the  woman  wisest  then,  in  halls 
Of  Lebanonian  ced  ir." 

1  Kings  10  :  4,  5. 

"  O  Vashti,  noble  Vashti !    Summon'd  out, 
She  kept  her  state  and  left  the  drunken  king 
To  brawl  at  Shushan  underneath  the  palms." 

Esther  1. 
"  Let  there  be  light  and  there  was  light." 

Gen.  1:3. 
"  But  we  that  are  not  all 
As  parts,  can  see  but  parts." 

1  Cor.  13  :  12. 

u  Their  cancell'd  Babels." 

"A  new-world  Babel,  woman-built 

And  worse-confounded." 

Gen.  11  :  9. 

"  They  mind  us  of  the  time 
When  we  made  bricks  in  Egypt." 

Ex.  1 :  14. 

(Judith  and  Holofernes  ) 

Apoc,  Book  of  Judith. 
"  A  Jonah's  gourd 
Up  in  one  night  and  due  to  sudden  sun." 

Jonah  4 : 6. 
"Touch  not  a  hair  of  his  head." 

Luke  21  :  18. 
"  The  old  leaven  leaven'd  all." 

1  Cor.  6  :  6,  7. 
"  This  Egypt  plagne." 

Ex.  7-12. 
"The  fires  of  Hell." 

Matt.  5  :  22. 

"  Between  a  cymball'd  Miriam  and  a  Jael." 

Ex.  15  :20;  Judges  i. 

"  Like  that  great  dame  of  Lapidoth  she  sang." 

Judges  5  : 1. 


404  APPENDIX. 

"  Stiff  as  Lot's  wife." 

Gen.  19  :  26. 
"  Bond  or  free." 

1  Cor.  12 :  18. 
*  Into  the  Heaven  of  Heavens." 

Neh.  9  :  6. 
The  Grandmother. 

"The  tongue  is  a  fire." 

Jamet  3  :  6. 
"  God,  not  man,  is  the  judge  of  us  all." 

Pom.  14  :  4. 
To  the  Rbv.  F.  D.  Maurice. 

"  Anathema." 

1  Cor.  16  :  22. 

The  Flower. 

"  He  that  runs  may  read." 

Eab.  2  :  2. 

The  Islet. 

"  To  a  sweet  little  Eden  on  earth." 

Gen.  2  :  8. 

The  Spiteful  Letter. 

"  This  faded  leaf,  our  names  are  as  brief." 

/«.1:30. 
Literary  Squabbles. 

"  When  one  small  touch  of  charity 

Could  lift  them  nearer  God  like  state 
Than  if  the  crowded  Orb  should  cry 
Like  those  who  cried  Diana  great." 

Acts  19  :  34. 
Northern  Farmer. 

"I  weant  saay  men  be  loiars  thaw  sum  man  said  it  in 
'aaste." 

Pt.  116:11. 

Ode  oh  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
"  The  shining  table  lands 
To  which  our  God  Himself  is  moon  and  sun." 

Rev.  21  :  23. 
"Dust  to  dust." 

6m.  3:9;  Eccl.  3  :  20 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  405 

Wages. 

"  The  wages  of  sin  is  death." 

Rom.  6  :  S3. 

The  Higher   Pantheism. 

"  The  son,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills  and  the 
plains  — 
Are  not  these,  0  Soul,  the  Vision  of  Him  who  reigns  1 " 

Rom.  1  :  20. 

"  Is  not  the  vision  He  1    tho'  He  be  not  that  which  He 
seems  ? 
Dreams  are  true  while  they  last,  and  do  we  not  live  in 
dreams? 

'  Speak  to  Him  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit  can 
meet  — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 
feet." 

Pi.  65  :  2;  Rom.  8  :  16;  Acts  17  :  27. 

"  God  is  law,  say  the  wise ;  O  Soul,  and  let  us  rejoice, 
For  if  He  thunder  by  law  the  thunder  is  yet  His  voice." 

Ps.  77  :  18. 

"  Law  is  God,  say  some :  no  God  at  all,  says  the  fool  ; 
For  all  we  have  power  to  see  is  a  straight  staff  bent  in 
a  pool." 

Pi.  14 : 1. 

"  And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear,  and  the  eye  of  man 
cannot  see , 
But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  Vision  —  were  it  not 
He?" 

It.  64  :  4;  1  Cor.  3  :  9  (Rev.  Vernon). 
Boadicea. 

"  Thou  shalt  wax  and  he  shall  dwindle." 

John  3  :  30. 
Milton. 

"Angel  .  .  .  Gabriel" 

Luke  2 : 1-19. 

•The  brooks  of  Eden. 

Gen.  2  :  10. 


406  APPENDIX. 

In  Memoriam.    Proem. 

"  Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  thy  face, 
By  faith  and  faith  alone  embrace, 
Believing  where  we  cannot  prove." 

1  Pet.  1 :  & 

"  Thou  madeet  life  in  man  and  brute." 

John  1 : 3. 

"  For  knowledge  is  of  things  we  see." 

Rom.  8 :  24. 

u  For  merit  lives  from  man  to  man, 
And  not  from  man,  O  Lord,  to  thee." 

Pt.  143 : 2. 
xv. 
"  And  but  for  fancies  which  aver 
That  all  thy  motions  gently  pass 
Athwart  a  plane  of  molten  glass." 

Job  37  :  18 ;  Rev.  4 : 6. 

XXII. 

u  The  shadow  fear'd  of  man." 

Pt.  23  :  4. 

XXIV. 

"  Since  Adam  left  his  garden." 

Gen.  8  :  23. 
xxvni. 
u  Peace  and  goodwill  to  all  mankind." 

Lull  2  :  14. 

XXX. 

'  They  rest,'  we  said ;  '  their  sleep  is  sweet.' " 

1  Then.  4  :  14. 
xxxi. 
H  When  Lazarus  left  his  charnel-cave, 
And  home  to  Mary's  house  returned, 
Was  this  demanded  — if  he  yearned 
To  hear  her  weeping  by  his  grave  ?  " 

JohntL 


BTBLICAL  REFERENCES.  407 

XXXII. 

*  She  bows,  she  bathe*  the  Saviour's  feet 
With  costly  spikenard  and  with  tears." 

John  12 :  J. 
■  The  life  indeed." 

John  11 :  25 

xxxn. 

"And  bo  the  Word  had  breath." 

John  1 :  14. 

XXXVII. 

■  Sacred  wine." 

1  Cor.  10  :  16. 

LYI. 

"  Who  trusted  God  was  love  Indeed." 

1  John  4  i  8. 

LXXXIY. 

"  What  reed  was  that  on  which  I  leant  ?  " 

h.  36 : 6. 
Lxxxvn. 
"The  God  within  him  light  his  face." 

8  Cor.  6  :  16. 
Lxxxvm. 
"Rings  Eden." 

Gem.  S :  8. 
xov. 
•Word  by  word,  and  line  by  Una." 

ft.  «8 1 18. 
xon. 
*  Bnt  in  the  darkness  and  the  clond. 
As  over  Sinai's  peaks  of  old, 
While  Israel  made  their  gods  of  gold, 
Altho'  the  trumpet  blew  so  loud." 

Jka:l-i 

CIIL 

"  The  thews  of  Anakim." 

Deut.  1 :  10. 
cvi. 
"The  thousand  years  of  peace." 

Rev.  20 : 2-4- 


408  APPENDIX. 

cvm. 
••And  vacant  yearning,  though  with  might, 
To  scale  the  heavens'  highest  height, 
Or  dive  below  the  wells  of  Death." 

Rom.  10 : 6-8. 

CXIV. 

"Who  shall  fix  Her  pillars?  "  (Knowledge.) 

Prov.  9 : 1. 
cxx. 
*Like  Paul  with  beasts  I  fought  with  Death." 

1  Cor.  15  :  32. 

CXXXI. 

•  O  living  will  that  shalt  endure 

When  all  that  is  shall  suffer  shock, 
Rise  in  the  spiritual  rock, 
How  through  our  deeds  and  make  them  pure." 

1  John2: 17;  1  Cor.  10 1 4. 

"To  one  that  with  us  works." 

1  Cor.  3:9;  Phil.  2  :  13. 
"  The  moon 

Of  Eden."  __  _ — _-- 
Gtn.il*. 


Maud. 


Part  I.    I.  6. 

"The  spirit  of  Cain." 

*  1  John  3  1 12. 

8. 

"  We  are  ashes  and  dust." 

Gen.  8 :  19. 

**  My  heart  as  a  millstone." 

J  Job  41  :  24. 

"  Set  my  face  as  a  flint." 

It.  50  :  7. 

9. 

1  When  only  not  all  men  lie." 

J  P$.  116  :  11. 

12. 

"  Mammon." 

Matt.  6  :  24. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  409 

n. 

"  Neither  savour  nor  salt." 

Matt.  5  :  13. 
xiii.  3. 
*  That  huge  scape-goat  of  the  race." 

Lev.  16  :  10. 
zviii.  2. 

"  The  gates  of  Heaven." 

Rev.  21 :  21. 
xvm.  3. 
(A  cedar  of  Lebanon.)     "  Thy  great 
Forefathers  of  the  thornless  garden,  there 
Shadowing  the  snow-limbed  Eve." 

Gen.  2:8;  3:18. 
Part  II. 
ii.  6. 
•*  An  old  song  vexes  my  ear ; 
But  that  of  Lamech  is  mine." 

Gen.  4 :  23. 
v.  4. 
"  I  never  whispered  a  private  affair 

.  .  •  • 

No,  not  to  myself  in  the  closet  alone, 
Bat  I  heard  it  shouted  at  once  from  the  top  of  the 

house." 

Luke  12 : 3. 

IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING. 

The  Coming  of  Arthur. 

"  Elfin  Urim." 

Ex.  28  :  30. 

u  Hath  power  to  walk  the  watei6  like  our  Lord." 

Matt.  14 :  25. 

"  Dark  sayings  from  of  old." 

J    &  P«.78:2. 

u  The  King  will  follow  Christ  and  we  the  King." 

1  Cor.  11  :  L 

u  The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new." 

Rev.  21 :  4,  6. 


410  APPENDIX. 

Gahsth  and  Ltnette. 

"A  stone  about  bis  neck  to  drown  him  in  it." 

Matt.  18  : 6. 
"  When  reviled,  hast  answered  graciously." 

1  Pet.  2  :  23. 

Gebaiht  and  Enid. 

"  Tho'  they  sought 
Through  all  the  provinces  like  those  of  old 

That  lighted  on  Queen  Esther." 

Esther  2  : 3. 

"  Here  through  the  feeble  twilight  of  this  world 

Groping,  how  many,  until  we  pass  and  reach 

That  other  where  we  see  as  we  are  seen." 

1  Cor.  13  :  12. 

"  Whose  souls  the  old  serpent  long  had  drawn 

Down." 

Rev.  12 : 9. 

"  Since  high  in  Paradise 
O'er  the  four  rivers." 

Gen.  2  :  10. 

"  But  o'er  her  meek  eyes  came  a  happy  mist 

Like  that  which  kept  the  heart  of  Eden  green 

Before  the  useful  trouble  of  the  rain." 

Gen.  2  : 6. 

"  He  hears  the  judgment  of  the  King  of  Kings." 

1  Tim.  6  :  15- 

Balin  and  Balan. 
"  The  Lost  one  Found  was  greeted  as  in  Heaven." 

Luke  15  :  32. 
"  Arimathsean  Joseph." 

Mark  15  :  43. 
"  Thorns  of  the  crown." 

Matt.  27  :  29. 

"  That  same  spear 
Wherewith  the  Roman  pierced  the  side  of  Christ." 

John  19  :  34 

"Arm  of  flesh." 

2  Chron.  82  :  8- 


+ 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  411 

"  I  better  prize 

The  living  dog  than  the  dead  lion." 

Eccl.9:L 

Merlin  and  Vivien. 

"  As  Love,  if  Love  be  perfect,  casta  out  fear." 

1  John  4  :  18. 

"  There  is  no  being  pure, 
My  cherub ;  saith  not  Holy  Writ  the  same  1  " 

Ram.  3  :  10. 

"  But  neither  marry  nor  are  given 
In  marriage,  angels  of  our  Lord's  report." 

Matt.  22  :  30. 
*  The  sin  that  practice  burns  into  the  blood, 
And  not  the  one  dark  hour  which  brings  remorse, 
Will  brand  us,  after,  of  whose  fold  we  be : 
Or  else  were  he,  the  holy  king  whose  hymns 
Are  chanted  in  our  minster,  worse  than  all." 

2  Sam.  11. 

"  Seethed  like  the  kid  in  its  own  mother's  milk." 

Ex.  23  :  19. 
"  An  enemy  that  has  left 
Death  in  the  living  waters." 

2  Kings  4  :  39,  40. 
"  And  stirr'd  this  vice  in  you  which  ruin'd  man 
Through  woman  the  first  hour." 

Gen.  3:12;  8:1-6. 
"  Let  her  tongue  rage  like  a  fire." 

James  3:6. 
■  And  judge  all  nature  from  her  feet  of  clay." 

Dan.  2 :  33. 
Lancelot  and  Elaine. 

"  His  mood  was  often  like  a  fiend,  and  rose 
And  drove  him  into  wastes  and  solitudes." 

Luke  8 :  29. 
"Fire  in  dry  stubble." 

Is.  5  :  24. 


412  APPENDIX. 

"  Since  man's  first  fall." 

Gen.  3  :  l-«. 
"But  loved  me  with  a  love  beyond  all  love  in  women." 

2  Sam.  1 :  26. 
The  Holt  Grail. 

"  The  cup,  the  cup  itself,  from  which  onr  Lord 
Drank  at  the  last  sad  supper  with  his  own." 

Matt.  26  :  29. 
"  After  the  day  of  darkness  when  the  dead 
Went  wandering  o'er  Moriah." 

Matt.  27  :  63. 
"  An  adulterous  race." 

Matt.  12  :  39. 
"  Galahad,  when  he  heard  of  Merlin's  doom, 
Cried, ' If  I  lose  myself,  I  save  myself I'" 

Matt.  10  :  39;  16:26. 
"  When  the  Lord  of  all  things  made  Himself 
Naked  of  glory  for  His  mortal  change." 

Phil.  2  :  6-7. 
"  Like  a  flying  star 
Led  on  the  gray-hair'd  wisdom  of  the  east." 

Matt.  2  :  9. 
"  But  my  time  is  hard  at  hand, 
And  hence  I  go,  and  one  will  crown  me  King 
Far  in  the  spiritual  city." 

2  Tim.  4  :  6,  8. 
"  Arimathican  Joseph." 

Matt.  27  :  67. 

"  Thou  hast  not  lost  thyself  to  save  thyself." 

Matt.  10 :  39. 
"  For  now  there  is  a  lion  in  the  way." 

Prov.  22  :  13. 
"  What  go  ye  into  the  wilderness  to  see  1 " 

Matt.  11  :  7. 
"  Shoutings  of  all  the  sons  of  God." 

Job  38  :  7. 
"  Gateways  in  a  glory  like  one  pearl." 

Rev.  21  :  12. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  413 

■  As  ever  shepherd  knew  his  sheep." 

John  10 :  14, 

"  Perhaps,  like  him  of  Cana  in  Holy  Writ, 

Our  Arthur  kept  his  best  until  the  last." 

John  2  : 1-10. 

"  Glory  and  joy  aud  honour  to  our  Lord." 

Rev.  4 :  11. 

"  A  seven-times  heated  furnace." 

Dan.  3  :  19. 

"  Great  angels,  awful  shapes,  and  wings  and  eyes." 

Eztk.  10  :  12. 
"  That  One 
Who  rose  again." 

1  Cor.  15  :  20;  2  Cor.  5  :  15. 

Pelleas  and  Ettaere. 

"  The  flame  about  a  sacrifice 

Kindled  by  fire  from  heaven." 

2  Chron.  7  : 1. 

"  Would  they  have  risen  against  me  in  their  blood 
At  the  last  day  ?     I  might  have  answered  them 
Even  before  high  God." 

Rev.  6  :  10. 

"  That  own  no  lust  because  they  have  no  law." 

Rom.  4  :  15. 
"  I  have  no  sword,  — 

Then  Lancelot,  *  Yea,  between  thy  lips — and  sharp.'*' 

1$.  49 :  % 
The  Last  Tournament. 
"  For  I  have  flung  thee  pearls  and  find  thee  swine." 

Matt.  7  :  6. 
"  Fear  God :  honour  the  King." 

1  Pet.  2  :  17. 
"  As  the  water  Moab  saw 
Come  round  by  the  East." 

2  King*  3  :  20-23. 

"The  scorpion- worm  that  twists  in  Hell 
And  stings  itself  to  everlasting  death." 

It.  66:  24. 


414  APPENDIX. 

"  Who  marrM  Heaven's  image  in  thee  thns  ? " 

Gen.  1 :  ff. 
"That  oft  I  seem  as  he 
Of  whom  was  written, '  a  sound  is  in  bis  ears."* 

Job  15 :  21. 
"The  great  lake  of  fire." 

Rev.  20 :  14. 
"  Conceits  himself  as  God  that  he  can  make 
Figs  out  of  thistles." 

Matt.  7 :  16. 
"  Michael  trampling  Satan." 

Rev.  12  s  7-9. 

GOINEVSBE. 

"Late,  late,  so  late!  and  dark  the  night  and  chill" 

Matt.  25  :  L 
"  So  she  did  not  see  the  face 
Which  then  was  as  an  angel's." 

Acu  6  :  15. 

QtJBEN   MABY. 

Act  I.,  Sc.  2. 
" '  Thou  shalt  not  wed  thy  brother's  wife.'  —  T  is  written, 
•Thej  shall  be  childless.'" 

Lev.  20  :  21. 
Sc.  3. 
"  From  thine  own  mouth  I  judge  thee." 

Luke  19 :  22. 
"  The  old  leaven." 

1  Cor.  5  r  7. 
Sc.  5. 
"The  great  angel  of  the  church." 

Rev.  2  i  L 
"  Whosoever 
Looketh  after  a  woman." 

Matt.  5  :  28. 
*Him  who  made  Heaven  and  earth." 

Ex.  20 :  11. 
"  The  living  waters  of  the  Faith." 

Johni:  10. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  415 

"The  palms  of  Christ," 

John  12 :  IS. 
"  Many  wolves  among  you." 

Ads  70 1&. 

Act  II.,  Sc.  2. 
*  They  go  like  those  old  Pharisees  in  John 
Convicted  by  their  conscience,  arrant  cowards." 

John  8  :  1-11. 

"Fruit  of  mine  own  body." 

Ps.  132 :  1L 

Sc.4. 
"  My  foes  are  at  my  feet  .  .  . 
There  let  them  lie,  your  footstool." 

Pi.  110 :  1. 
Act  III.,  So.  1. 
"  Not  red  like  IscariotV' 

Matt.  10  t  4. 

"  A  pale  horse  for  Death." 

Rev.  6  :  8. 
"  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder." 

Malt.  19  :  18. 
"  I  have  ears  to  hear." 

Matt.  11  :  15. 
«  Verbum  Dei  .  .  .  Word  of  God." 

Rom.  10 :  17. 
"That  cannot  spell  Esaias  from  St  Paul." 

Rom.  9  :  27. 
8c.  2. 
"  Ave  Maria,  gratia  plena, 
Benedictu  tu  in  mulieribns." 

Luke  1  :  28. 
"The  scarlet  thread  of  Rahab  saved  her  life." 

Joshua  2  :  18 ;  6  :  17. 
"And  marked  me  ev'n  as  Cain." 

Gen.  4  :  15. 


416  APPENDIX. 

"  Since  your  Herod's  death 
How  oft  hath  Peter  knocked  at  Mary's  gate, 
And  Mary  would  have  risen  and  let  him  in ; 
But,  Mary,  there  were  those  within  the  house 
Who  would  not  have  it." 

Acts  12  :  11-17. 
"  Sit  benedictus  fructus  ventris  tui." 

Lull  1 :  42. 
"Our  little  sister  of  the  Song  of  Songs." 

Cant.  8  :  8. 
"  Swept  and  garnished." 

Matt.  12  :  44. 
"  The  devils  in  the  swine." 

Matt.  8  :  28-32. 
"  Prince  of  Peace." 

Is.  9  :  6. 

*  Who  will  avenge  me  of  mine  enemies." 

Is.  1  :  24. 
"  Open,  ye  everlasting  gates." 

P$.  24 : 7. 
Sc.  3. 
"  The  blessed  angels  who  rejoice 

Over  one  saved." 

Luke  15  :  10. 

"The  Lord  who  hath  redeem'd  us 
With  his  own  blood  and  wash'd  us  from  our  sins." 

Rev.  5  : 9. 
"All  her  breath  should,  incenselike, 
Rise  to  the  heavens  in  grateful  praise  of  Him." 

P$.  141 : 2. 
"  These  are  forgiven  .  ,  . 
And  range  with  .  .  .  offal  thrown 
Into  the  blind  sea  of  forgetf ulness." 

Micah  7 :  19. 
"To  purchase  for  Himself  a  stainless  bride." 

Rev.  19:7. 
*  He  whom  the  Father  hath  appointed  Head 

Of  all  his  church." 

Eph.  5 :  23. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  417 

Sc.  4. 
"  Compel  them  to  come  in." 

Luke  14  :  23. 
"  I  would  they  were  cut  off 

That  trouble  you." 

Gal.  5  :  12. 
"  Little  children, 

Love  one  another." 

1  John3:lS;  4:7. 

*  I  come  not  to  bring  peace,  but  a  sword." 

Matt.  10  :  34. 

"  The  Church  on  Peter's  rock." 

Matt.  16  :  18. 

"  When  Herod-Henry  first 
Began  to  batter  at  your  English  Church." 

Acts  12 : 1. 

"  The  spotless  bride  of  Christ." 

Eph.  5  :  27. 

"  Like  Christ  himself  on  Tabor." 

Matt.  17  : 2. 

"  God's  righteous  judgment." 

Rom.  2 :  5. 

*  Ev'n  Saint  Peter  in  his  time  of  fear 
Denied  his  Master,  ay,  and  thrice,  my  Lord." 

Malt.  26  :  69-74. 
"  Burn  and  blast  them  root  and  branch." 

Mai.  4  :  1. 
"  His  fan  may  thoroughly  purge  his  floor." 

Matt.  3  :  12. 
Sc.  5. 
"  The  very  Truth  and  very  Word  are  one." 

John  14  :  6 ;  1 :  1. 
■  Back  again  into  the  dust  we  sprang  from." 

Gen.  3  :  19. 
Act  IV.,  Sc.  2. 
*  There  is  more  joy  in  Heaven." 

Luke  15  :  7. 
*  The  trumpet  of  the  dead." 

1  Cor.  15  :  62. 


418  APPENDIX. 

"  How  are  the  mighty  fallen." 

2  -Sam.  1  :  19. 
"  Power  hath  been  given  you." 

John  19  :  11. 
Sc.  3. 
*  Nunc  dimittis." 

Luke  2  :  29. 
"It  is  expedient  for  one  man  to  die." 

John  11  :  50. 
"  The  penitent  thief's  award 
And  be  with  Christ  the  Lord  in  Paradise." 

Luke  23  :  43. 
"  Remember  how  God  made  the  fierce  fire  seem 
To  those  three  children  like  a  pleasant  dew." 

Dan.  4  :  20-28. 
"  Saint  Andrew." 

Luke  6  :  14. 
■  Whither  should  I  flee  for  any  help  ?  " 

h.  10:3;  20:6. 
"  I  am  ashamed  to  lift  my  eyes  to  heaven." 

Luke  18  :  13. 
"  Refusing  none 
That  come  to  Thee  for  succour." 

John  6  :  37. 
"  0  God  the  Son  .  .  .  when  thou  becamest 
Man  in  the  flesh." 

John  1 :  14. 
"  0  God  the  Father,  not  for  little  sins 
Didst  thou  yield  up  thy  Son  to  human  death." 

John  3  :  16. 
"  Unpardonable.     Sin  against  the  light." 

Matt.  12  :  32. 
"Forgive  me,  Father,  for  no  merit  of  mine, 
But  that  Thy  name  by  man  be  glorified, 
And  Thy  most  blessed  Son's  who  died  for  man." 

John  17  :  1,  2. 
"Love  of  this  world  is  hatred  against  God." 

James  4  : 4. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  419 

"  Obey  your  Kiug  and  Queen,  and  not  for  dread 
Of  these  alone,  but  from  the  fear  of  Him 
Whose  ministers  they  be  to  govern  you." 

1  Pet.  3  :  13, 14. 
"  But  do  you  good  to  all 
As  much  as  in  you  lieth." 

Gal.  6  :  10. 

"  How  hard  it  is 
For  the  rich  man  to  enter  Heaven." 

Matt.  19  :  23. 
"  Give  to  the  poor, 
le  give  to  God.     He  is  with  us  in  the  poor." 

Prov.  19  :  17. 
"  God's  image." 

Gen.  1 :  26. 
■  Ignorance  crying  in  the  streets." 

Prov.  1 :  20,  21. 
"  Your  original  Adam-clay." 

Gen.  2  :  7. 
"This  hath  offended,  —  this  unworthy  hand." 

Matt.  6  :  30. 
Act  V.,  So.  1. 
"  She  is  none  of  those  who  loathe  the  honeycomb." 

Prov.  27  : 7. 
Sc.  2. 
"It  was  thought  we  two 
Might  make  one  flesh,  and  cleave  unto  each  other 
As  man  and  wife." 

Matt.  19  I  5. 
"  Labour  in  vain." 

Ps.  127  : 1. 
"  A  low  voice  from  the  dust." 

It.  SB :  4. 
"  They  say  the  gloom  of  Saul 
Was  lightened  by  young  David's  harp." 

1  8am.  16  :  23. 
"Bring  forth  death." 

James  1  :  15. 


420  APPENDIX. 

Sc.  4. 
*  Soft  raiment." 

Luke  7  :  25. 
"  All  things  in  common  as  in  the  days  of  the  first  church 

when  Jesus  Christ  was  King. 

Actsi:  32. 
Sc.  5. 
"  Garner  the  wheat 
And  burn  the  tares  with  unquenchable  fire." 

Matt.  3: 12;  13:  40. 

"  The  shadow  of  death." 

Pt.  23 :  4. 

"  And  she  loved  much ;  pray  God  she  be  forgiven." 

Luke  7  :  47. 
Ha  HOLD. 

"  All  things  make  for  good." 

Rom.  8  :  28. 
Act  I.,  Sc.  1. 
"  And  hold  their  babies  up  to  it. 
I  think  that  they  would  Molochize  them  too, 

To  have  the  heavens  clear." 

Lev.  18  :  21. 

"  In  Heaven  signs, 

Signs  upon  earth." 

Dan.  6  :  27. 

"  War  in  heaven. 

Rev.  12  :  7. 

"  I  have  fought  the  fight  and  go." 

2  Tim.  4  :  7. 

■  Gates  of  Pearl." 

Rev.  21 :  21. 

"  To  the  deaf  adder  thee,  that  will  not  dance 

However  wisely  charm'd." 

J  P$.  68  :  4. 

"Let  brethren  dwell  together  in  unity." 

Ps.  188  : 1. 

Sc.  2. 
"  Did  not  heaven  speak  to  men  in  dreams  of  old." 

Matt.  2  :  12. 
"  Scape-goat." 

Lev.  16  : 8. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  421 

Acr.  II.,  Sc.  1. 
"  Fishers  of  men." 

Matt.  4 :  19. 
"Jonah." 

Jonah. 
Sc.  2. 

"  For  having  lost  myself  to  save  myself." 

Matt.  10  :  39. 
"  Familiar  spirit" 

1  Sam.  28  :  7. 

"  The  torch  .  .  .  among  your  standing  corn." 

Judges  15  :  4,  5. 

Act  III.,  Sc.  1. 

"I  have  built  the  Lord  a  house." 

1  Kings  8  :  20. 

"  Sing,  Asaph  !  clash 
The  cymbal,  Heman  ;  blow  the  trumpet,  priest." 

1  Chron.  25  :  L 
"  Fall,  cloud,  and  fill  the  house." 

2  Chron.  7  :  1 ;  1  Kings  8  :  10. 

"  Jachin  and  Boaz." 

1  Kings  7  :  21. 

"  Treble  denial  of  the  tongue  of  flesh 

Like  Peter's  when  he  fell." 

Matt.  26  :  69-74- 

"  To  wail  like  Peter." 

Matt.  26  :  75. 

"Talked  with  God." 

Ex.  33  : 9. 

"  Signs  in  heaven." 

Dan.  6  :  27. 

Sc.  2. 

"That  which  reigned  called  itself  God." 

2  Thess.  2  :  4. 

"  Render  unto  Cesar." 

Malt.  22  :  21. 
"  The  Good  Shepherd." 

John  10 :  1L 

Act  IV.,  Sc.  1. 
"The  kingdoms  of  this  world." 

Rev.  11 :  1ft. 


422  APPENDIX. 

"  A  king  of  men 
Not  made  bat  born,  like  the  great  King  of  all, 
A  light  among  the  oxen." 

Luke  2  :  7. 
So.  8. 
"  A  fast  of  forty  days." 

Matt.  4 : 2. 

Act  V.,  Sc.  1. 
"Mock-king,  I  am  the  messenger  of  God, 
His  Norman  Daniel  1  Mene,  Mene,  Tekel  I " 

Ban.  5 :  25. 
"Evil  for  good." 

Rom.  3  :  8. 

"Evil  for  erQ." 

Rom.  12  :  17. 

*  The  peace  of  God." 

Phil.  4 : 7. 

"  Were  the  great  trumpet  blowing  Doomsday  dawn." 

1  Theu.  4 :  16. 
"  Spear  into  pruning  hook." 

Joel  8  t  10. 

"  God  of  battles." 

Pi.  24 :  8. 

"  There  is  one 
Come  as  Goliath  came  of  yore." 

1  Sam.  17  :  40. 

"Pastor  fngatur  .  .  .  Grex  trucidatur." 

John  10  :  12,  13. 

"Equus  cum  eqnite  dejiciatur  .  .  .  precipitator." 

Ex.  15  : 1. 

"  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest." 

'  Luke  2  :  14. 

So.  9. 
"  My  punishment  is  more  that  I  can  bear." 

Qen.  4  :  13. 
The  Lover's  Tale. 

"  When  the  outer  lights  are  darkened." 

Eccl.  12  :  8 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  423 

"  Till  earth  and  heaven  pass." 

Matt.  5  :  18. 
"  Length  of  days." 

Ps.  91  :  16. 

M  The  bitterness  of  death." 

1  Sam.  15  :  32. 

"  As  that  other  gazed, 

Shading  his  eyes  till  all  the  fiery  cloud, 

The  prophet  and  the  chariot  and  the  steeds, 

Sucked  into  oneness  like  a  little  star 

Were  drunk  into  the  inmost  blue." 

2  Kings  2 :  11,  12. 

"  A  land  of  promise  flowing  with  the  milk 
And  honey  of  delicious  memories." 

Ex.  3  : 8. 
"  Exceeding  sorrow  unto  Death." 

Matt.  26  :  38. 

"  She  took  the  body  of  my  past  delight, 
Narded  and  swathed  and  balmed  it  for  herself. 
And  laid  it  in  a  sepulchre  of  rock." 

John  19 :  39-41. 
"  The  evil  flourish  in  the  world." 

Ps.  37  and  73. 
"  Like  a  vain  rich  man, 
That  having  always  prospered  in  the  world, 
Folding  his  hands,  deals  comfortable  words, 
To  hearts  wounded  forever." 

Jot.  2  :  15,  16. 
Thb  Lover's  Tale.     (Original  edition.) 
"  So,  bearing  on  thro'  Being  limitless 
The  triumph  of  this  foretaste,  I  had  merged 
Glory  in  glory,  without  sense  of  change." 

2  Cor.  3  :  18. 
BlZPAH. 

"Rizpah." 

2  Sam.  21 :  8-ia 

"  As  the  tree  falls  so  it  must  lie." 

Ecel.  11 :  3. 
"F*esh  of  my  flesh  —  bone  of  my  bone." 

Gen.  2  :  2& 


424  APPENDIX. 

"  My  Willy  'ill  rise  up  whole  when  the  trumpet 
of  judgment  'ill  sound." 

1  Theu.  4  :  16. 
"Full  of  compassion  and  mercy." 

Pt.  86  :  15. 
The  Northern  Cobbles. 

"A  beast  of  the  feald." 

Ex.  28  :  11. 

"  Like  Saatan  as  fell 
Down  out  o'  heaven  in  Hell-fire." 

Luke  10 :  18. 
In  the  Children's  Hospital. 

"  Ye  do  it  to  me  when  ye  do  it  to  these." 

Matt.  25  :  40. 
"  Spirits  in  prison." 

1  Pet.  3  :  19. 

"  Little  children  should  come  to  me." 

Matt.  19  ;  14. 
Sir  John  Oldcastle. 

"  Not  least  art  thou,  little  Bethlehem 
In  Judah,  for  in  thee  the  Lord  was  born." 

Micah  5  :  2. 
"  Hereafter  thou,  fulfilling  Pentecost, 
Must  learn  to  speak  the  tongues  of  all  the  world." 

Acts  2 :  1-4. 
"  Thou  bringest 
Not  peace,  a  sword." 

Matt.  10  :  84. 
"Antichrist." 

1  John  2  :  18. 

*  The  kingdoms  of  this  world." 

Rev.  11 :  15. 

"Lord,  give  thou  power  to  thy  two  witnesses." 

Rev.  11 :  3. 

"  Persecute  the  Lord, 
And  play  the  Saul  that  never  will  be  Paul." 

Act*  9  :  4 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  425 

"  Or  such  crimes 

As  holy  Paul  —  a  shame  to  speak  of  them  — 

Among  the  heathen." 

6  Eph.  5  :  12. 

"  The  Gospel,  the  Priest's  pearl,  flung  down  to  swine." 

Matt.  1 :  6. 
"  Thy  Gospel  meant 
To  course  and  range  thro'  all  the  world." 

Matt.  24  :  14. 
"Babylon." 

Rev.  17 :  6. 
"  How  long,  0  Lord,  how  long." 

Rev.  6  :  10. 

"  Thou  living  water." 

John  4 :  10. 

"  He  that  thirsteth,  come  and  drink." 

Rev.  22  :  17. 

"Power  of  the  keys." 

Matt.  16  :  19. 

"Those  three !  the  fourth 
Was  like  the  Son  of  God !    Not  burnt  were  they," 

Ban.  3  :  25. 

"  Caiaphas." 

Matt.  26  :  57. 

Columbus. 

"  The  crowd's  roar  fell  as  at  the  '  Peace,  be  still.'  ■ 

Mark  4  :  39. 
"  For  him  who  gave  a  new  heaven,  a  new  earth, 
As  holy  John  had  prophesied  of  me." 

Rev.  21 :  1. 

"  And  saw  the  rivers  roll  from  Paradise." 

Gen.  2 :  10. 

"  King  David  called  the  heavens  a  hide,  a  tent, 
Spread  over  earth." 

P».  104  i  8. 
"  Moriah  with  Jerusalem." 

2  Chron.  8  t  L 


426  APPENDIX. 

"And  I  saw 
The  glory  of  the  Lord  flash  up." 

Rev.  21 :  19-27. 
"  From  Solomon's  now-recover'd  Ophir,  all 
The  gold  that  Solomon's  navies  carried  home." 

1  Kings  9  :  26-28. 
"  0  soul  of  little  faith,  slow  to  believe." 

Matt.  14  :  31;  Luke  24  :  2d. 

"  Time  shall  be  no  more." 

Rev.  10  :  6. 

"  Endure !  thou  hast  done  so  well  for  man,  that  men 
Cry  out  against  thee ;  was  it  otherwise 
With  mine  own  son  ?  " 

Matt.  10  :  24,  25. 
"  Be  not  cast  down.    I  lead  thee  by  the  hand, 
Fear  not." 

Dent.  31  :  8;  /*.  41 :  13. 

The  Voyage  op  Maeldune. 
"  Remember  the  words  of  the  Lord  when  he  told  us 
'  Vengeance  is  mine.' " 

Rom.  12  :  19. 
De  Pbofuwdis. 
"  From  that  great  deep,  before  our  world  begins, 
Whereon  the  spirit  of  God  moves  as  he  will." 

Gen.  1  :  2. 
"  Let  us  make  man." 

Gen.  1  :  26. 
"That  one  light  no  man  can  look  upon." 

1  Tim.  6  :  16. 

"  Hallowed  be  Thy  Name." 

Matt.  6  :  9. 

Bbckbt. 

Prologue. 

"  The  spiritual  body." 

1  Cor.  16  :  44 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  427 

'Let  her  eat  dust  like  the  serpent,  and  be  driven  ont 
of  her  Paradise." 

Gin.  3 :  14. 


Act  I.,  Sc.  1. 

"  King  of  Kings." 

"  The  twelve  Apostles." 
"  Let  them  be  Anathema.' 


1  Tim.  6  «  1& 

Matt.  10 :  2. 

1  Cor.  16  :  22. 


Sc.  3. 

"  The  Lord  be  judged  again  by  Pilate." 

Matt.  27  :  2. 
"  When  murder,  common 
As  Nature's  death,  like  Egypt's  plague,  had  filled 
All  tilings  with  blood,  —  when  every  doorway  blushed, 
Dash'd  red  with  that  unhallow'd  passover." 

Ex.  7  :  19 ;  12  :  22. 
"Peter's  rock." 

Matt.  16  :  18. 
"Life  for  a  life." 

Ex.  21 :  23. 
*  Thou,  the  shepherd,  hast  betrayed  the  sheep." 

John  10  :  12. 
"  Mortify  thy  flesh." 

Gal.  5:24;   Col.  3:  5. 
"Reeds  that  sway  ...  to  the  wind." 

Matt.  11  :  7. 
"Who  but  the  bridegroom  dares  to  judge  the  bride?  " 

John  3  :  29. 
"  As  gold  outvalues  dross  ;  light,  darkuess ;  At  el,  Cain." 

Heb.  11 :  4,  5,  8. 
"  Saint  Lazarus." 

John  11. 
"Deal  gently  with  the  young  man  Absalom." 

2  Sam.  18  :  5. 
M  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

Ps.  118  ;  26 


428  APPENDIX. 

Sc.  4. 
"Ye  have  drunken  of  my  cup." 

Matt.  20  :  2a 
"  Bidden  to  our  supper." 

Luke  14  :  7-24. 
"Steams  .  .  .  like  the  altar  at  Jerusalem." 

2  Sam.  24  :  18. 

"  Call  in  the  poor." 

Matt.  22  :  9. 

"The  princess  sat  in  judgment  against  me  " 

Pa.  119  :  23, 
"  The  Lord  hath  prepared  your  table." 

Ps.  23  :  5. 
"  Sheep  without  the  shepherd." 

Matt.  9  :  36. 
"  With  Cain's  answer,  my  Lord.    Am  I  his  keeper !  " 
"  The  Lord  hath  set  his  mark  upon  him  that  no  man 

should  murder  him." 

Gen.  4  :  9-15. 

"  With  Cain  ...  in  the  land  of  Nod." 

Gen.  4  :  16. 
■  Smite  him  with  the  edge  of  the  sword." 

Deut.  13  :  15. 
"  Smite  the  she'pherd,  and  the  sheep  are  scattered." 

Zech.  13  : 7. 
"  His  Lord  and  Master  in  Christ." 

Matt.  20 :  27. 
■  Who  fed  you  in  the  wilderness." 

Deut.  8  :  16. 
Act  II.,  Sc.  1. 

"  The  voice  of  the  deep." 

Hob.  3  :  10. 
"  Turn  the  world  upside  down." 

Act*  17 : 6. 

Sc.  2. 
"  ^hief-like  fled  ...  no  man  pursuing." 

Prov.  28  : 1. 
"  Take  heed  he  do  not  turn  and  rend  you." 

Matt.  7  :  6 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  429 

"  None  other  God  bat  me." 

Ex.  20  : 3. 

"  Nay,  if  they  were  defective  as  Saint  Peter 
Denying  Christ,  who  yet  defied  the  tyrant, 
We  held  by  his  defiance,  not  by  his  defect." 

Matt.  26:70;  Acts  4  :  19. 

"  What  manner  of  man  he  was." 

James  1 :  24. 

"Yea,  let  a  stranger  spoil  his  heritage, 
And  let  another  take  his  bishoprick." 

Acts  1 :  20. 

"Withstood  .  .  .  to  their  faces." 

Gal.  2  :  11. 

"  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  praise." 

Ps.  8 : 2. 

"  A  fisher  of  men." 

Matt.  4  :  19. 

"  Agree  with  him  quickly." 

6  M att.  5:25. 

"Still  choose  Barabbas  rather  than  the  Christ." 

Matt.  27  :  21. 

"  Absolve  the  left-hand  thief  and  damn  the  right." 

Luke  23 :  43. 

"  On  mine  own  self  .  .  .  had  had  no  power  except." 

John  19  :  11. 
"  Thou  art  no  prophet 

Nor  yet  a  prophet's  son." 

Amos  7 :  14. 
Act  III.,  Sc.  1. 

"  Solomon-shaming  flowers." 

Matt.  6  :  29. 

If  I  had  been  Eve  in  the  garden,  I  should  n't  have 
minded  the  apple.    For  what 's  an  apple !  " 

Gen.  3  : 6. 

"The  seventh  Commandment." 

Ex.  20  :  14. 
Sc.  3. 

"A  home  on  sand." 

Matt.  7  :  26,  27. 


430  APPENDIX. 

"  Fulled  .  .  .  the  church  .  .  .  down  upon  his  own  head." 

Judge*  16  :  29. 
"  A  thief  at  night  .  .  .  hears  a  door  open,  .  .  . 
'  And  thinks, '  The  master.'  " 

Matt.  24 :  43. 
"  The  thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shouting." 

Job  39 :  25. 
"  The  miraculous  draught." 

Luke  5  : 6. 
"  Goliathizing." 

1  Sam.  17  :  4. 
"  A  whole  Peter's  sheet." 

Acts  10 :  11. 
"  Magdalen." 

Luke  8  : 2. 
"  The  spouse  of  the  great  king." 

Rev.  21 : 9. 
"  The  daughter  of  Zion  lies  beside  the  way." 

It.  1  :  8. 
"  The  priests  of  Baal." 

2  Kings  10  :  19. 
"  The  kiss  of  peace." 

1  Thess.  5  :  26. 
"Ay,  if  this  if  be  like  tne  Devil's  if, 
Thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me." 

Matt.  4  : 9. 

"  Thou  hast  trodden  this  winepress  alone." 

It.  63  : 3. 

"  The  drop  may  hollow  out  the  dead  stone." 

Job  14  :  19. 
"  My  visions  in  the  Lord." 

2  Cor.  12  : 1. 
"  Murder  her  one  shepherd,  that  the  sheep." 

Matt.  26  j  31. 
Act  IV.,  Sc.  2. 
"  The  Judas-lover  of  our  passion-play." 

Matt.  26  :  47. 
"  Our  great  high-priest." 

Heb.  4 :  14. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  431 

Act  V.,  So.  1. 

"The  Decalogue." 

Za.  30. 
So.  a. 
"  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world." 

John  18 :  36. 
"  A  policy  of  wise  pardon, 
Wins  here,  as  there,  to  bless  thine  enemies." 

Matt.  5  :  44,  46. 
"  This  world's  leaven." 

1  Cor.  5  i  7. 
" These  wells  of  Marah." 

Ex.  15  :  23- 

"In  this  life  and  in  the  life  to  come." 

1  Tim.  4  :  8. 
"They  spread  their  raiment  down." 

Matt.  21 : 8. 
"  Give  to  the  King  the  things  that  are  the  King's, 
And  those  of  God  to  God." 

Matt.  22 :  21. 

"  Mailed  in  the  perfect  panoply  of  faith." 

Eph.  6  :  13. 
*'  The  great  day 

When  God  makes  up  his  jewels." 

Mai.  3  :  IT. 
*  Would  that  I  could  bear  thy  cross." 

Matt.  27 :  32. 
"  They  seek  occasion  for  your  death." 

Marl  14 :  55. 
■  Why  do  the  heathen  rage  ?  " 

Pi.  2 : 1. 

8c.  3. 

"  Die  with  him  and  be  glorified  together." 

Rom.  8 :  17. 
M  Thouf  h  .  .  .  the  great  deeps  were  broken  up  again." 

Gen.  7  :  11. 
"  Knock  and  it  shall  be  opened." 

Matt.  7 : 7. 


432  APPENDIX. 

"Not  tho'  it  be  their  hour,  the  power  of  darkness." 

Luke  22  :  53. 

"He  is  not  jet  ascended  to  the  Father." 

John  20  :  17. 

"Fight  out  the  good  fight,  die  conqueror." 

2  Tim.  4  :  7. 

"  At  the  right  hand  of  Power 

Power  and  great  glory  — for  thy  Church,  O  Lord  — 

Into  thy  hands,  0  Lord,  into  thy  hands  ! " 

Luke  22  :  69 ;  23  :  46. 

"  Will  the  earth  gape  and  swallow  us  ?  " 

Num.  16  :  32. 
Achilles. 

"  Smoke  from  a  city  goes  to  heaven." 

Josh.  8  :  20. 

To  E.  Fitzgerald. 

"  As  if  they  knew  your  diet  spares 

Whatever  moved  in  that  full  sheet 

Let  down  to  Peter  at  his  prayers." 

Acts  10  :  11 

**  Grapes  of  Eshcol  hugeness." 

Num.  13  :  23 
The  Wreck. 

"  The  wages  of  sin  is  death." 

Bom.  6  :  23. 
"  I  am  the  Jonah;  the  crew  should  cast  me  into  the  deep." 

Jonah  1 :  15. 
"  Was  it  well  with  the  child  ? " 

2  Kings  4  :  26. 
Despair. 

"  He  is  only  a  cloud  and  a  smoke  who  was  once  a  pillar 
of  fire." 

Ex.  13 :  911. 
"Ah  God  ...  I  waa  taking  the  name  in  vain." 

Ex.  20  : 7. 
"  Till  the  sun  and  moon  of  our  Science  are  both  of  them 
turned  into  blood." 

Joel  2 :  3L 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  433 

*  Does  what  he  will  with  his  own." 

Matt.  20  :  16. 

The  Flight. 

"  The  godless  Jephtha  vows  his  child  .  .  . 
To  one  cast  of  the  dice." 

Judges  11 :  3a 

Early  Spring. 

"  Makes  all  things  new." 

Rev,  21 :  15. 

"A  Jacob's  ladder  falls." 

Gen.  28  :  12. 

Locksley  Hall,  Sixty  Years  After. 

"Love    your    enemy,    bless   your    haters,    said   the 

Greatest  of  the  great." 

Matt.  5  :  44. 

"Have  we  grown  at  last  beyond  the  passions  of  the 
primal  clan, 
Kill  your  enemy,  for  you  hate  him." 

Matt.  5  :  43. 
"  Dust  to  dust." 

Eccl.  3:  20;  Job  34  :  15. 
"  What  are  men  that  he  should  heed  us  .!  cried  the  king 
of  sacred  song." 

Pi.  8  : 4. 

"  The  trampled  serpent." 

Gen.  3  :  15. 

"  Follow .  you  the  star  that  lights  a  desert  pathway, 
yours  or  mine, 
Forward  till  you  see  the  highest  Human  Nature  is 
divine."  Matt.  2  :  2. 

"  Follow  Light  and  do  the  Right  —  for  man  can  half 
control  his  doom  — 
Till  you  find  the  deathless  Angel  seated  in  the  vacant 
tomb." 

John  20  :  12. 


434  APPENDIX. 

The  Charge  of  the  Heavy  Brigade. 
Epilogue. 
"  Though  carved  in  harder  stone 
The  falling  drop  will  make  his  name 
As  mortal  as  my  own." 

Job  14  :  19 

The  Falcon. 

"  Happy  was  the  prodigal  son." 

Luke  15 :  20-23. 
The  Promise  of  Mat. 

Act  I. 
"  Let  us  eat  and  drink  for  tomorrow  we  die." 

Is.  22  :  13;  1  Cor.  15  :  32. 
u  Yes,  tho'  the  fire  should  run  along  the  ground, 

As  it  once  did  in  Egypt." 

Ex.  9  :  23. 

Act  n. 

"As  long  as  the  man  sarved  for  'is  sweet'art  i' 
Scripture." 

Gen.  29  :  20. 
Act  III. 
"  Forgive  him  seventy  times  and  seven." 

Matt.  18  :  22. 
"  This  valley  of  tears." 

Pt.  84 . 6. 
Vastness. 

"  Innocence  seethed  in  her  mother's  milk." 

Ex.  34  :  26. 
"  He  that  has  nail'd  all  flesh  to  the  Cross." 

Gal.  5 :  24. 
"The  dead  are  not  dead,  but  alive." 

Matt.  22    32;  Mark  12  :  27;  Luke  10  :  38. 
Owd  Roi. 
"  Faaithf  ul  an'  True  —  them  words  be  i'  Scriptur'." 

Rev.  22 : 6. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  435 

"  Or  like  t'other  Hangel  i'  Scriptur'  at  summon  seed  P 
the  flaame, 
When  summun  'ed  hax'd  for  a  son,  an'  'e  promised 
a  son  to  she." 

Judge*  13  :  19-21. 
"  Judgment  daay." 
„       „  Matt.  12 :  36. 

Tins  Ring. 

"  Father's  fault  visited  on  the  children." 

Ex.  20 :  5. 
"  The  veil  is  rending." 
„  Matt.  27  :  5L 

Foblobn. 

"Daughter  of  the  seed  of  Cain." 

Gen.  4. 
ILiPPT. 

"  My  soldier  of  the  cross." 

2  Tim.  2  :  3. 
"  A  crueller  mark  than  Cain's." 

Gen.  4  :  15. 

"  Creature  which  in  Eden  was  divine." 

Gen.  1  :  27. 
"When  we  shall  stand  transfigured,  like  Christ  on 
Hermon  hill." 

Matt.  17  : 1,  2. 
"  Clove  the  Moslem  .  .  .  moon  ...  and  changed  it  into 
blood." 

Joel  2 :  31. 
"'Libera  me,  Domine ! '  you  sang  the  Psalm." 

"If  man  and  wife  be  but  one  flesh." 

Matt.  19 : 6. 
To  Maht  Boyle. 

"  Dives  and  Lazarus." 

Luke  16  :  19-31. 
Merlin  and  The  Gleam. 

"  Drew  to  the  valley 
Named  of  the  shadow." 

Ps.  23:4. 


436  APPENDIX. 

Romhey's  Remorse. 

"  Ay,  but  when  the  shout 

Of  his  descending  peals  from  heaven." 

1  Then,  4  :  16. 

*  Why  left  you  wife  and  children  ?  for  my  sake? 

According  to  my  word  ?  " 

Marie  10 :  29. 

"  The  coals  of  fire  you  heap  upon  my  head 

Have  crazed  me." 

Rom.  12 :  20. 

Crossing  the  Bar. 

"  I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face, 
When  I  have  crost  the  bar." 

1  John  3  :  2;  1  Cor.  13  :  12. 

The  Foresters. 

Act  I.,  Sc  1. 

*  Sufficient  for  the  day." 

Matt.  6 :  84. 

Act  II.,  Sc.  1. 

"  The  serpent  that  had  crept  into  the  garden." 

Gen.  3 : 1. 

"  The  palms  of  Paradise." 

*  Rev.  7  :  9. 

Act  III.,  Sc.  1. 
*  Sell  all  thou  hast  and  give  it  to  the  poor." 

Matt.  19  :  21. 
Act  IV.,  Sc.  1. 

"The  King  of  Kings." 

Rev.  17 :  14. 

**Will  hang  as  high  as  Haman." 

Eith.  7  :  9,  10. 

"  Beelzebub." 

Matt.  10 :  25. 

"  I  am  like  the  man 

In  Holy  Writ,  who  brought  his  talent  back." 

Matt.  25  :  25. 

Akbar's  Dreah. 

"  Allah,  says  their  sacred  book,  is  Love." 

1  John  4  :  16. 


BIBLICAL  REFERENCES.  437 

"  Love  one  another,  little  ones." 

John  13  :  33,  34. 
"  Bless  your  persecutors." 

Rom.  12 :  14. 
"The  Sun  of  Righteousness." 

Mai.  4 : 2 
"  Bear  false  witness." 

Ex.  20 :  16. 

The  Church  Warden. 

"  The  narra  gaate." 

Matt.  7 :  14. 
"  The  tongue's  sit  afire  o'  HelL" 

Jai.  3  : 6. 

"  By  the  Graace  o'  the  Lord  —  I  have  wot  I  have." 

1  Cor.  15  :  10. 
"The  Kingdom  c'  Heaven." 

Matt.  3 : 3. 
Charity. 

"  For  a  woman  ruined  the  world, 
As  God's  own  Scriptures  tell." 

Gen.  3 : 1-6. 
*  I  had  cursed  —  the  day  I  was  born." 

"The  Heaven  of  Heavens." 

1  Kings  8  :  27. 
"  Face  to  face  with  her  Lord." 

1  Cor.  13  :  12. 
The  Dawk. 

"  A  babe  in  the  red-hot  palms 
Of  a  Moloch  of  Tyre." 

2  Kings  23  :  10. 
The  Dreamer. 

"  The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth." 

r,  ,,  Matt.  5 : 5. 

Riflemen  Form. 

"  Are  figs  of  thistles?     Or  grapes  of  thorns  1 " 

Matt.  7  :  16. 


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